Wouldn’t it be great if you could attract more visitors from around the world to your website and increase traffic?
As the president of a popular WordPress SEO plugin, I’ve seen a growing trend toward the need for localization (adapting your content to a specific target audience) on websites and in online marketing.
I believe that many businesses can unlock tremendous potential by combining basic localization techniques with SEO best practices.
In this article, I will share proven international SEO tips that have helped me and many others, including entrepreneurs, marketers, and bloggers, to attract a global audience.
Note: This is a guest post by Benjamin Rojas, the president of All in One SEO, the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market. This is an expert column that we publish on Thursdays, where we invite a WordPress expert to share their experiences with our readers.
I will break down the article into step-by-step tips that you can use. If you want, you can also jump to a section by clicking the links below:
Why Target Global Audiences With International SEO?
As the president of one of the biggest WordPress SEO plugins on the market, I have customers from all over the world.
To earn these customers, my team ensures that All in One SEO can be translated easily (50+ languages and counting).
This is just one way to get more global customers, and there are plenty of ways that other businesses can do it.
Here are some of the benefits of targeting global audiences:
More traffic: Anyone from anywhere can visit your website. Why limit yourself? Going international means your audience can explode in size.
Understand broader customer needs: It’s not just about getting hits. It’s about understanding what different people need and want. This can help you tailor your content and marketing to convert more users.
Boost engagement: When you speak someone’s language, literally and culturally, they’re more likely to listen. That means more shares, more sales, and more feedback.
Stay ahead of competitors: Many businesses aren’t making the most of international SEO yet. Start now, and you’ll be steps ahead.
How to Target Users in Different Regions With International SEO
Over the years working in the SEO industry, I have learned that tiny changes in your SEO strategy can often lead to big and meaningful results.
One misconception about offering localized experiences is that it requires too much time and resources.
My experience has been totally different.
International SEO does require some effort, but it is quite easy, and the benefits are worth your time.
1. Choose Regions You Want to Target
Not all businesses and websites target international audiences.
However, for most websites, a huge chunk of visitors are coming from abroad, even when you are not specifically trying to reach any region in particular.
That’s not to say that you have to make your website available in every language. However, you can determine and target which languages and regions are the easiest low-hanging fruit.
The perfect tool for this is Google Analytics. It tracks your website visitors and shows you who they are, where they are coming from, and what they are interested in.
Many users have reported difficulty finding the reports they need in Google Analytics. I recommend that you use MonsterInsights, which is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress.
I use MonsterInsights because it makes Google Analytics so easy. You get all your important reports right inside the WordPress dashboard.
For instance, you get this ‘Top 10 Countries’ report showing where your visitors come from.
In this example screenshot, you can easily see countries where most people speak a language different than your website’s language.
You also see countries where users may speak the same language but have regional differences, such as currencies and cultural and geographical factors.
Reaching those customers by providing them with a more localized experience can bring in more users and revenue from these regions.
Once you have found the regions you want to target, translating your website into local languages is the easiest way to offer a better user experience.
Only a decade ago, creating multilingual websites was not easy. However, now you have excellent tools and resources that make it a breeze.
The easiest way to serve multilingual content in WordPress is by using a WordPress translation plugin like WPML.
You can translate your website by yourself or outsource translations. It is not too expensive, and the quality of human translations is typically high.
WPML also offers AI-powered automatic translations on a pay-as-you-go basis. It is built using state-of-the-art language models from Microsoft, Google, and DeepL.
The big question that comes next is whether you should translate a select few pages or your entire website.
From an SEO point of view, here is how I see it:
Translating just a handful of pages means you’re missing out on ranking opportunities in other languages. Having a higher number of translated pages creates more chances to climb the search engine ladder.
Remember, internal linking is a major player in SEO. To make it work on a multilingual site, you need enough translated content to create meaningful links between pages.
So, my advice is: Go for a full site translation. This will boost your SEO and enhance the user experience, which search engines love.
3. Choose URL Structure
When offering different versions of a website to different regions, your WordPress translation plugin will ask you to choose a URL structure.
You can use any of the following URL structures:
Subdomain URL structure (Example: https://en-uk.yourwebsite.com). The disadvantage of this method is that search engines consider subdomains to be individual websites. Your root domain will not benefit from this structure.
Subdirectory URL structure (Example: https://yourwebsite.com/en-uk/) This URL structure takes advantage of your root domain’s authority and is good for rankings in many cases.
Country-level domain names (Example: https://yourwebsite.co.uk). For this method, you will need to register domain names for each country you want to target. The advantage is that ranking in a country with a local domain name is easier. The disadvantage is that this will be treated as a standalone website with little benefit to your main domain name.
Language parameter in URL (Example: https://yourwebsite.com/?lang=en-gb). This method is not recommended because it makes it difficult for you to manage URLs and for users to realize they are seeing a geo-targeted page version.
In my opinion, a subdirectory URL structure offers the most SEO benefits for small businesses. It is also easier to manage and set up redirects.
4. Keyword Research
Keyword research is the technique used by SEO experts and marketers to find the search terms their target audience is using.
It applies to international SEO as well.
For example, while your website might rank for “Sneakers” in the United States, in the UK, your customers could be searching for “Trainers,” and in Canada, they might use the term “Runners.”
You can see this in action on the Nike website. It has highly optimized pages for ‘Trainers’ on the Nike U.K. store, ‘Sneakers’ on the Nike U.S. store, and ‘Shoes’ on Nike India.
You can select countries while doing your keyword research to find the search volume.
I recommend using SEOBoost for keyword research. It is an all-in-one tool for on-page SEO and keyword research.
Simply enter your main keyword and then select the region you want to target.
It will generate a comprehensive analysis of search rankings, content analysis, and what you need to outrank the competition.
You will need an SEO plugin like All in One SEO, which helps you optimize each page with different SEO titles and descriptions.
Aside from the copy on your page, post, or product content, you will need to pay attention to SEO settings.
Depending on which translation plugin you are using, you can edit the SEO settings in the translation editor. For example, here is the WPML translation editor, where the AIOSEO settings are highlighted.
Ensure you optimize each page for the focus keyword you chose for that region.
Once you have started translating your content into other languages, you need to tell search engines about the translated content.
The best way to do this is with XML sitemaps. These documents tell search engines about all the content on your website, which makes it easier for them to crawl and rank your posts and pages.
If you are using All in One SEO for WordPress, then you can go to the AIOSEO » Sitemaps page to configure sitemaps.
All in One SEO replaces the default WordPress XML sitemaps with advanced features. It automatically includes all your translated content in your sitemaps and even supports RSS, video, news, and HTML sitemaps.
Unfortunately, many businesses often overlook their landing and home pages when thinking about regional user experience.
Including cultural references and location-specific content on your pages can help with conversions. However, overlooking these elements may cause your landing and home pages for different regions to be less effective in converting traffic into customers.
I recommend creating pages using a page builder like SeedProd. It is a beginner-friendly WordPress page builder with an intuitive drag-and-drop design tool.
This way, you can easily create duplicate landing pages and translate them. You can also create separate home pages for different regions.
Basically, this approach significantly reduces the amount of work required without compromising on conversions.
6. Redirecting Users to Regional Content
In my experience, a personalized user experience is great for conversions. For that reason, you might be considering automatically sending users to content made for their region and language.
That’s a big NO!
Google and other search engines discourage setting up automatic redirects for translated versions of your website by detecting users’ IP addresses or cookies.
This is because automatic redirects may stop search bots from crawling all versions of your site and prevent users from viewing content they originally found.
Instead, it’s better to set up a language or region switcher for your multilingual and multi-region content. This will inform users that the content is available in their language or region and give them an opportunity to switch.
Note: All top WordPress translation plugins come with language switchers.
What About Manual Redirects?
In some cases, you may need to set up manual redirects. For instance, if you change the URL structure from a subdomain to a directory URL.
These types of redirects may be necessary because the old URL structure would result in 404 errors.
You can use the All in One SEO redirection manager to set those redirects. It lets you set up site redirects and use REGEX to save time.
Google is pretty good at detecting content in different languages and showing it to users in those regions. However, I still recommend explicitly telling search engines about the language or region of your content.
This can be done using the hreflang HTML tag. Most WordPress translation plugins will automatically add that to the header of your site. It is a tiny string that looks like this:
Why Is It Important?
Let’s say you have three versions of a page, all in English, but they show prices in regional currencies.
The content of those pages may appear quite similar to search engines and could be considered duplicate content.
By adding the hreflang tag to the HTML code, you tell search engines about the different versions of the page to avoid duplicate content.
Do you want to show product recommendations in WordPress?
Displaying product recommendations can encourage users to make additional purchases, boosting your sales and revenue. It can also improve user engagement by convincing visitors to stay longer on your site.
In this article, we will show you how to easily show product recommendations in WordPress, step by step.
Why Show Product Recommendations in WordPress?
If you have an online store, then showing product recommendations on the cart or checkout page can increase the average order value on your site.
By suggesting relevant products, you can help customers discover items they might be interested in, leading to a more satisfying shopping experience.
For instance, if a customer purchases a hat in your clothing store, you can recommend sunglasses because both these options protect from the sun and are often bought together.
You can show these recommendations as a slide-in cart, order bump, upsell, or cross-sell products, and even send automated emails to users upon purchase to gain traction.
Having said that, let’s take a look at how to easily show product recommendations in WordPress.
For this tutorial, we will be using multiple methods, so you can use the links below to jump to the one of your choice:
Method 1: Show Product Recommendations on the Products Page
If you want to show relevant recommendations on the products page, then this method is for you.
You can easily do this using the default upsell feature in WooCommerce, so you won’t need any other plugin for this method.
Upsells basically means recommending a more premium version of the product the user is purchasing. However, you can also add other relevant products in this section.
First, you must visit the Products » Add New page from the WordPress dashboard to create a new product. You can also edit an existing one if you want.
Once you have added the details, scroll down to the ‘Product Data’ section and switch to the ‘Linked Products’ tab from the left column.
Here, you can add different products to your WooCommerce store in the ‘Upsell’ section. To do this, just enter the name of the product, and you will be shown the search results from which you can choose a product to add.
After that, scroll back to the top and click the ‘Publish’ button to store your settings and make your product live.
Now, visit your WooCommerce store to view the upsell products under the ‘You may also like’ section.
Method 2: Show Product Recommendations on the Cart Page
If you want to display product recommendations on the cart page just as the customer is moving to the checkout, then this is the method to use.
WooCommerce offers the default cross-sell option that allows you to show relevant and complementary products without using any plugin.
First, open the product of your choice in the WooCommerce editor and scroll down to the ‘Product Data’ section.
Here, switch to the ‘Linked Products’ tab where you can add relevant products to be displayed on the carts page in the ‘Cross-sells’ section.
Once you are done, just click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button at the top to store your settings.
Now, visit your store and add a product in the cart to head over to the Cart page. Here, you will notice that the product recommendations are displayed in the ‘You may be interested in…’ section.
Method 3: Show Product Recommendations as a Sliding Cart
You can use this method if you want to show product recommendations in a sliding cart.
FunnelKit is a popular WooCommerce plugin that lets you add a sliding cart to your store and also show relevant recommendations within this cart to encourage users to make more purchases.
Upon activation, head to the FunnelKit » Cart page and toggle the ‘Enable Cart’ switch to ‘On.’
After that, you can select the sliding cart visibility, icon position, coupon field, summary, and checkout settings from the section below. For more details on this, see our tutorial on how to easily add a sliding cart in WooCommerce.
Once satisfied, you must switch to the ‘Upsells’ column from the left and toggle the ‘Enable Cart Upsells’ switch to ‘On.’
Note: Keep in mind that you will need the pro version of the plugin to unlock the upsells feature.
This will open new settings on the page from where you can configure the display layout for product recommendations. You will be able to see a preview for each layout style on the right corner of the screen.
After that, you must select if you want to show cross-sell or upsell products as recommendations. You can also choose the ‘Both’ option.
Then, you can add a heading to be displayed at the top of product recommendations and choose the number of recommendations to be displayed.
Once that is done, scroll down to the ‘Upsells and Cross-Sells’ section to view the list of all the products on your online store.
From here, expand a product’s tab and click the ‘Add Upsell’ or ‘Add Cross Sell’ button to add recommendations.
Remember that upsell products are like the premium version of the product that the customer has added to the cart, while cross-sell products are the ones that are related to the product the user is purchasing.
Upon clicking on one of the buttons, a popup will open on the screen from where you can search and add the product that you want to be displayed in the recommendations.
You can follow the same process for all the products on your online store.
Once you are done, just click the ‘Save’ button at the top to store your settings.
You can now visit your WooCommerce to view the sliding cart with product recommendations.
Method 4: Show Product Recommendations as Order Bumps
Use this method to display relevant product recommendations as an order bump, which is a technique used on the checkout page to show relevant products to customers at a lower price point.
This can often convince them to buy it right before finishing the checkout process.
Note: FunnelKit Builder has a free plan, but you will need the pro version to unlock the order bumps feature.
Upon activation, visit the FunnelKit » Settings page from the admin sidebar and switch to the ‘License’ tab in the left column.
Then, enter your license key and click the ‘Activate’ and ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings. You can get this information from your account on the FunnelKit website.
Once that is done, go to the FunnelKit » Store Checkout page from the WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Add Order Bump’ button.
This will open a popup where you must add a name for the order bump that you are creating and click the ‘Add’ button.
The plugin will now add the order bump to your checkout funnel. Here, click the ‘Edit’ button to start the process.
This will take you to a new screen where you must click the ‘Add Product’ button to open a popup.
Here, just type and add the products that you think will complement the buyers’ purchase and then click the ‘Add Product’ button.
Next, you can select a discount type for the products that you chose from the dropdown menu and can even offer more than one quantity for each item to customers.
Once you have done that, just click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
Then, scroll down to the ‘Order Bump Settings’ section, where you can select the order bump’s behavior and display position during checkout.
For instance, if you select the ‘Add Order Bumps to Cart Items’ option as the bump behavior, then customers will be suggested these products to add as an extra purchase.
However, when choosing ‘Replace Order Bumps with a Cart Item (used for upgrades)’, you give customers the option to replace their purchase by upgrading to a higher-end version of the product.
After that, switch to the ‘Design’ tab from the top. Here, you can configure how the order bump offer will look to customers.
You can add a title and description and change the text colors, background color, toggle color, border, font size, price display, and box padding and width. Once you are satisfied, just click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
Now, it is time for you to switch to the ‘Rules’ tab, where you have to click the ‘Add Rules’ button.
This will display some new settings on the screen that you can use to display the order bump for specific products. The rules can be based on the cart, customer, geography, or date and time.
For example, if you want to display the order bump on the checkout for a specific product, then you must choose the ‘Customer Product Purchased’ option from the dropdown menu on the right.
After that, just add the product name in the text field on the right and click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
Now, visit your WooCommerce to view the order bump on the checkout page of a specific product.
Method 5: Offer Post-Purchase Recommendations With Emails
If you want to send a post-purchase recommendation email to customers, then this method is for you. For this, you will need FunnelKit Automations, which is a powerful automation plugin.
You can create a workflow with it that will automatically send a recommendation email to users sometime after their purchase.
Note: You can sign up for the FunnelKit free plan to do this.
Upon activation, visit the FunnelKit Automations » Automations page from the WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Create Automation’ button.
This will take you to the ‘Add Automations’ page, where you will see a list of premade templates offered by the plugin.
From here, switch to the ‘WooCommerce’ tab and select the ‘Post Purchase Sequence’ template.
Doing that will open a preview of the automated workflow in a new tab from where you must click the ‘Import Recipe’ button.
This will open a new prompt. Here, add the name for the workflow that you are making and click the ‘Create’ button.
The FunnelKit Automation editor will now be launched on the screen. You can start by clicking on the ‘Order Created’ tab. This is the trigger that will start the workflow.
A popup will appear on your screen, where you will have to select the order status. For instance, if you select the ‘Processing’ option, then the email will be sent to users after they place their order.
However, when choosing the ‘Completed’ option, customers will receive an email after they get the order at their address. Just configure these settings and click the ‘Save’ button.
Once you do that, click the ‘Delay’ tab.
This will open the prompt on the screen where you can choose how long after the purchase the email should be sent to users. For example, you can choose 1 hour from the dropdown menu.
After that, click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
Next, click the ‘Action’ tab in the editor to open its settings in the popup. Here, you can start by configuring the subject line of the email.
Then, click the ‘Merge Tags’ option at the top.
On doing that, a popup will open up where you have to switch to the ‘Orders’ tab.
Next, scroll down to the ‘Order Cross Sells’ option and click the copy button next to it.
The prompt will now automatically close, and you can scroll down to the text builder in the ‘Action’ popup.
Here, you can change the email content according to your liking and add the cross-sells tag. Now, users will see a list of relevant products that you added for the purchased product using WooCommerce or FunnelKit.
Once you are done, just click the ‘Save and Close’ button.
You can now view your automated workflow again to see if you want to make any changes.
After that, toggle the ‘Inactive’ switch at the top to ‘Active’.
Now, your customers will receive an email with product recommendations exactly an hour after purchase.
Method 6: Show Product Recommendations in Popups
If you want to show product recommendations in popups, then this method is for you.
For this, you will need OptinMonster, which is the best lead generation and conversion optimization tool on the market. It allows you to create popups, gamified spin the wheels, banners, and floating bars using its premade templates and visual editor.
It also has exit intent technology that lets you display product popups to users just as they are planning to leave your store.
To create a product recommendation popup, you will need to create an account on the OptinMonster website.
Once you do that, open your WordPress dashboard and install the free OptinMonster plugin, which will connect your website with the tool.
Upon activation, the OptinMonster setup wizard will open up, where you must click the ‘Connect Your Existing Account’ button. You can then follow the onscreen instructions to complete the process.
Next, visit the OptinMonster » Settings page and click the ‘Auto Generate Keys + Connect WooCommerce’ button.
If you don’t do this, then campaigns created with OptinMonster won’t be shown in your store.
Once that is done, head over to the OptinMonster » Templates page from the WordPress dashboard and select ‘ Popup’ as the campaign type.
Next, click the ‘Use Template’ button for a template that you want to use. For this tutorial, we have used the ‘Product Recommendations’ template.
This will open a prompt where you can add a name for the campaign that you are creating.
Once you do that, OptinMonster’s drag and drop builder will be launched on the screen. Here, you can use different blocks to add an image, details, and CTA for a product. For more instructions, see our tutorial on how to create a WooCommerce popup to increase sales.
Then, click the ‘Product Details’ button in the popup preview to open its settings in the left column. You can now add the URL for the product’s page in the ‘Redirect URL’ field.
Now, switch to the ‘Display Rules’ tab from the top. Here, you will be setting conditions for the product recommendation popup appearance.
To do this, open the ‘Time on Page’ dropdown menu and choose the ‘Page Targeting’ option.
This will allow you to show your popup to users on a specific product’s page, letting you cross-sell or upsell the product.
Upon choosing this option, select ‘contains’ from the dropdown menu in the middle and then add the URL of the product page where you want to display the specific recommendation popup.
You can also choose the ‘Exit Intent’ option to display the popup as the user is about to leave your store.
If you want, you can change the feature’s intensity to show it to more customers.
Finally, switch to the ‘Publish’ tab from the top.
Here, click the ‘Publish’ button to make your popup live. Then, click the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.
You can now visit your online store to view the product recommendations popup in action.
If you selected a specific page for the popup, then you must head to that page to view the results.
Method 7: Display Product Recommendations in Easy Digital Downloads
If you sell digital downloads on your online store, then the above methods may not be suitable for you.
In that case, you can use Easy Digital Downloads, which is the best plugin for selling digital goods, to show product recommendations.
Note: EDD has a free plan, but you will need the pro version to unlock the Cross-sell and Upsell add-on.
Upon activation, visit the Downloads » Settings page from the WordPress admin sidebar to enter your license key. You can get information from under your account on the EDD website.
Then, click the ‘Activate’ button.
Once you have done that, you must set up your store to start selling products. For instructions, see our beginner’s guide on how to sell digital downloads in WordPress.
Next, head over to the Downloads » Extensions page and locate the ‘EDD Cross-sell and Upsell’ addon, and click the ‘Install’ button under it.
Once the addon is installed, it will automatically show an activated toggle like this:
Now, it’s time for you to visit the Downloads » Settings page and switch to the ‘Extensions’ tab.
From here, you can configure the heading for upsell and cross-sell products. Remember that the upsell products are like a premium version of the product the user is purchasing, while cross-sell products are the ones that are related to the purchased products.
You can add your headings according to your liking and also adjust the number of product recommendations to be shown from the dropdown menus.
After that, just click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
Now, open the digital product where you want to add product recommendations.
Once the block editor appears, simply scroll down to the ‘Cross-sell and Upsell’ section, where you can add custom headings for each section.
If you don’t add a heading, then the default headings you configured will be added to the page.
After that, select the upsell product recommendations from the dropdown menu. You can follow the same process for cross-sell products as well.
Once you are done, just click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button to store your settings.
Now open the product page on the website front-end, and you will see that the upsell product will be recommended on the product page.
On the other hand, the cross-sell products will be recommended to users when they are on the checkout page.
This is how the cross-sell products looked on our demo website.
Bonus: Properly Set Up eCommerce Tracking In WordPress
Once you have added product recommendations, it is time for you to set tracking for your online store to find your top-selling products, see which campaigns perform the best, and understand how people find and use your website.
This will help you find what kind of products customers are likely to buy along with others in your store. For example, you may notice that anyone who is buying sunscreen is also purchasing a hat.
With this information, you can show relevant product recommendations to customers and boost your conversions.
Then, head over to the Insights » Addons page from the WordPress dashboard and install the eCommerce addon.
Now visit the Insights » Settings page and switch to the ‘eCommerce’ tab. Here, you must toggle the ‘Use Enhanced eCommerce’ switch to ‘On.’
Once you do that, MonsterInsights will start recording analytics and find the data you need, including conversion rate, transactions, revenue, average order value, and top products.
Many of our readers are worried that moving a WordPress website or switching to a different SEO plugin will affect their website search rankings.
Search is the primary traffic source for most websites, so you want to be extremely careful when migrating.
In this tutorial, we will share the ultimate WordPress SEO migration checklist. It will ensure that all your SEO settings are preserved during the migration without hurting any of your search rankings.
Here is a list of topics we will cover in this guide:
You need to ensure that you take proper precautions to preserve all your website data and SEO.
Following this step-by-step checklist will allow you to do proper WordPress SEO migration without losing rankings and traffic.
Preparing Your Website for Migration
First, you need to prepare your WordPress website for migration. You will do that by setting up proper SEO tracking and making a complete website backup.
Step 1: Track Your SEO Performance
First, you want to make sure that you can properly understand how your website is doing in search before you begin the migration.
This will help you compare your search performance after the migration and determine if the migration had any negative or positive impact on your traffic.
You’ll need two tools to track this data.
1. Set Up Google Analytics
The easiest way to track and monitor your website traffic is by using MonsterInsights. It helps you easily install Google Analytics on your website, which monitors your website traffic and shows you where your users are coming from.
After that, you will be asked to verify ownership of your website. You can do that by adding a code snippet to your site’s header.
We recommend using All in One SEO for WordPress to verify your site’s ownership. It makes it easy to add a Google Search Console verification code.
More importantly, All in One SEO has the most powerful XML sitemaps, which you can then add to your Google Search Console account to improve how Google crawls your website.
Once your website is verified, you will be able to access a treasure trove of data. You can see it in your Google Search Console dashboard under the Performance tab.
It will show you how often your site appears in search results, how many clicks you get, which keywords you are ranking for, and search ranking positions.
Once you have created XML sitemaps, you need to download them to your computer.
Simply open an XML sitemap and select ‘Save as’ from the right-click menu.
Repeat the process to download all sitemap XML files.
3. Download URLs Using Screaming Frog SEO Spider (Paid)
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is an app for SEO professionals. It allows you to crawl any website, like search engines, and collect important data for SEO.
It crawls all your website URLs, external links, image URLs, JavaScript and CSS files, and more.
Open the app on your computer, go to File » Settings, and change the ‘Storage Mode’ to ‘Database Storage’.
After that, you need to enter your website URL in the top bar and click on the ‘Start’ button.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider will start crawling your website. Wait for it to finish the crawl, which may take some time, depending on your website’s size.
Once finished, your crawl data will be stored in the app’s database.
After the migration, you can crawl your website again and then compare the data to find missing URLs, broken links, images, and other files.
Note: A free version of Screaming Frog software is available for download. However, it is limited to 500 URLs, and most other features are locked. You will need the paid version to perform a full crawl and unlock all features.
4. Compare with Semrush Site Audit (Paid)
Semrush is one of the best SEO platforms used by marketers and SEO professionals.
You can perform a complete site audit before and after the migration, which will highlight the changes in your SEO performance.
Semrush will also let you catch missing files, broken links, URLs that are not indexable, 404 errors, and other SEO warnings.
Note:Semrush has a free version, but it is limited. For a comprehensive SEO site audit, you’ll need a paid plan.
Step 2: Back Up Your Website
A backup is one of the most important tools in your arsenal for securing all your data.
Generally, you should set up automatic backups on your website so that a complete, fresh copy of your site is always safely stored. This is handy if something bad happens to your website and you need to restore it quickly.
You must also create a complete WordPress backup before initiating major site changes, such as a migration.
Upon activation, go to the Duplicator » Packages page and click the ‘Create New’ button.
Duplicator will start the new package wizard. Simply follow the on-screen instructions to create the package.
Once you have created a package, you can download it to your computer.
If you are migrating your WordPress website to a new server or domain name, then you can also download the package and installer files to your computer.
Step 3: Migrating Your WordPress Website (Optional)
If you are not migrating your WordPress website to a new host or to a new domain name, then you can skip this step.
Now that you have downloaded Duplicator packages to your computer, you can migrate your WordPress website.
Migrating WordPress to a New Host
If you haven’t already done so, you first need to sign up for a new host.
We recommend using Bluehost. They are one of the largest hosting companies in the world and an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider.
They offer WPBeginner users a generous discount on hosting and a free domain name. You can get started for $1.99 per month.
Once you are done, return to this guide and follow the remaining steps.
Post Migration SEO Checklist
After moving your WordPress website (either to a new host or a new domain), it is time to perform the post-migration SEO checks.
These steps will prevent any negative SEO impact of the migration and fix potential issues before they become a problem.
Step 4. Setting Up Redirects
If you have migrated your WordPress site to a new domain name, you must redirect users from the old domain name to the new one.
This step is crucial for a successful SEO migration.
These redirects properly send users from your old domain to the new one, and they also let search engines know that your website has moved to this new location.
There are two easy ways to do this in WordPress. We’ll show you both.
Method 1. Set Up Full Site Redirect Using All in One SEO for WordPress
Upon activation, go to the Tools » Redirection page and switch to the Site tab.
Under the Relocate Site section, add your new domain name and click the Update button to save your settings.
The Redirection plugin will now redirect users and search engines to your domain name.
Step 5. Compare URLS
Next, you need to perform a comprehensive website crawl to compare all URLs on the new website with the old data.
This is the data you collected in the first step to benchmark your SEO performance before the migration.
1. Compare URLs Using XML Sitemaps
Set up XML sitemaps on your new website using All in One SEO. After that, download the XML Sitemaps to your computer.
Simply compare the new sitemap URLs with the old sitemaps you downloaded earlier.
2. Compare URLs Using Screaming Frog SEO Spider
If you have a paid subscription to Screaming Frog SEO Spider, then you can compare the two crawls.
Open the App and perform a full crawl of your new website. After that, switch to the Mode » Compare tab and select the current and previous crawl.
You can also perform more comprehensive analyses by examining both crawls in different Modes, such as List and Spider mode.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider website has a detailed tutorial on comparing crawls.
3. Compare URLs Using Semrush
Another easy way to compare URLs is with Semrush using the Site Audit tool.
If you have set up Semrush before migration using a paid subscription plan, then you can compare it with the new craw post-migration.
Semrush will automatically report any issues it finds under the Issues tab.
You can also compare before and after crawls automatically.
All you have to do is switch to the ‘Compare Crawls’ tab to compare a past crawl with the latest crawl.
Step 6. Fixing Crawl Issues and URLs
When comparing URLs, you may come across some issues. The most common problems are:
Missing URLs – A post or page on your old site is unavailable on your new site. To fix this, you may need to create a new post or page or create a redirect (see Step 4 for redirect tools).
Missing Media – An image, audio, or video file failed to import. To fix this, try to manually import the missing media file or set up a redirect.
Go through any issues you find and fix them manually if needed.
Step 7. Migrating WordPress SEO Data
WordPress SEO plugins save important SEO data in your WordPress database. This includes plugin settings, SEO metadata, redirects, focus keyphrases, and more.
However, since you backed up your entire WordPress website during the migration, your SEO plugin and all its SEO data should start working out of the box.
This step is for users who want to switch their WordPress SEO plugin and want to migrate SEO data from one plugin to another.
Luckily, all good WordPress SEO plugins come with built-in SEO data importers.
For instance, All in One SEO will automatically detect other WordPress SEO plugins and will give you an option to import SEO during the setup wizard.
You can also manually import SEO data in the plugin settings.
Simply head over to the All in One SEO » Tools page and switch to the ‘Import / Export’ tab.
Under the ‘Import Settings From Other Plugins’ section, choose your older SEO plugin and then check ‘All Settings’.
Click ‘Import’ to continue, and All in One SEO will import all your SEO data from your previous SEO plugin.
Other WordPress SEO plugins like Rank Math and Yoast SEO also have built-in SEO data importers and exporters that you can use.
Step 8. Monitor SEO Performance Post Migration
Now that you have completely migrated WordPress while preserving SEO, you need to ensure that you are tracking important marketing data, including analytics and Google Search Console.
If you didn’t change your domain name, then your older Google Analytics and Google Search Console integrations will continue working.
Keep an eye on those reports to monitor your website for any post-migration traffic loss or drop in search rankings.
On the other hand, if you migrated WordPress to a new domain name, you will need to reconfigure Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Reconfigure Google Analytics
Those using MonsterInsights can go to the Insights » Settings page and scroll down to the Google Authentication section.
Click the downward arrow to expand the Website Profile section, and then click the ‘Reconnect MonsterInsights’ button.
MonsterInsights will then reauthenticate your website to Google Analytics and automatically add a new data stream configured with your new domain name.
Users who have manually installed Google Analytics in WordPress will need to add their new Domain Name as a Data Stream in Google Analytics.
Login to your Google Analytics account and click the gear icon at the bottom left corner to switch to the admin view.
Next, go to the Data collection and modifications » Data streams and then click on the ‘Add stream’ button.
Select Web as your stream type, and then add your new domain and website title.
Click the ‘Create stream’ button to save your settings.
Google Analytics will now start tracking data from your new domain name.
Reconfigure Google Search Console
Next, you need to reconfigure Google Search Console and inform Google about the change of address.
Note: This step is important because otherwise, Google may consider your new site a mirror or duplicate, which will make it much longer to rank for your new domain name.
Important: Ensure you use the same Google account you used for your old domain name.
After adding your new domain to Google Search Console, switch to your old domain name profile in Google Search Console.
On the next screen, you will be asked to set up 301 redirects from your old domain to your new site address. You have already done that earlier, so you can move on to the next step. If you missed that step, we suggest going back and doing it now.
Below that, select your new domain name from the drop-down menu and click on the ‘Validate & Update’ button.
That’s all. You have now informed Google about the change of address.
This may take a while, but gradually, your new domain will start appearing in search results instead of your old domain name. During this time, you won’t lose any traffic due to the 301 redirects you set up.
Frequently Asked Questions About WordPress SEO Migration
Following are some of the most commonly asked questions about SEO migration for WordPress websites.
1. How do you do an SEO migration?
First, back up your website and track performance with Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Then, move your website data, including SEO data.
If you are migrating to a new domain name, ensure that you set up 301 redirects. Finally, use the Change of Address tool in Google Search Console to notify Google about the new URL.
2. How can I migrate my website without losing SEO?
By setting up proper redirects and using the Google search console, you can migrate your website easily without losing SEO.
3. Will domain migration increase SEO traffic?
Depending on the domain you use for migration, it may cause an increase in SEO traffic. For instance, if your new domain is more relevant to your website topics or you are using a country domain to reach a more targeted audience.
We hope this WordPress SEO migration checklist is helpful in migrating your websites. You may also want to take a look at our complete WordPress SEO guide for a more detailed SEO walkthrough and our expert picks of the best domain name registrars if you are looking to switch to a new domain name.
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.
Over our years of helping small websites and companies grow and compete with the big guys, we’ve learned that the right business tools can make a huge difference in their success.
Whether you are looking for something to help you with email marketing, customer support, customer relationship management, or something else, there are plenty of plugins and software options that can fit the bill.
That’s why we’ve done the research and put together a huge list of the best business tools for small businesses. We’ve broken down everything into different categories so that you can find the best options for your needs.
Quick Pick: The Best Business Tools for Small Business
Here’s how we reviewed different small business tools for this guide:
Real-World Experience: At WPBeginner, we actively run small businesses of our own. We’re involved in starting new projects and managing existing websites, so we’ve used and tested these tools extensively ourselves. We ensure that they meet our high standards of reliability and ease of use.
Comprehensive Research: We perform our own dedicated research to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in each category. We regularly update our recommendations accordingly, holding each tool to a high standard.
User Feedback: We’ve combed through various third-party sites and even performed polls for users to see how they enjoy using these tools.
Why Trust WPBeginner?
At WPBeginner, we’re a passionate team with over 16 years of hands-on expertise in WordPress, design, and online marketing. Our mission is simple: deliver top-notch content and valuable resources to our audience. We achieve this by thoroughly evaluating and reviewing the plugins and software we actually use.
Running a business is no small feat. Luckily, there’s a wealth of online tools available to streamline your workflow and ease your burden. Choosing the right ones can feel overwhelming, though.
At WPBeginner, we’ve been testing and refining our top picks for years, keeping pace with the ever-evolving market. We’ve narrowed down our favorites to a curated list across various categories.
However, it can be a chore to figure out which is the right tool for your business.
Here are just a few reasons to add some of these small business tools to your repertoire.
Increased Productivity: The right tools streamline business processes, automate repetitive tasks, and enhance overall efficiency. This leads to increased productivity among your team members, allowing them to focus on more strategic and value-added activities.
Improved Collaboration: Many small business tools come with collaboration features that facilitate communication and teamwork. This is especially important in modern work environments where remote or dispersed teams are common. Collaboration tools enhance communication, file sharing, and task management.
Enhanced Customer Experience: Tools such as a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system help businesses manage customer interactions, track leads, and provide personalized services.
Data-Driven Decision Making: Software with analytics and reporting capabilities provides valuable insights into business performance and customer journey. With accurate data at your fingertips, you can make informed decisions, identify trends, and adjust strategies to align with your business goals.
Time and Cost Savings: Automation tools can significantly reduce the time spent on manual tasks, saving both time and money. You may have limited resources, so software that automates activities allows you to allocate resources more efficiently.
That said, it’s time to cover the best business tools for small businesses. Feel free to use the links below to jump to any section you need a solution for:
Every business needs to build an email list. Sure, you could keep in touch with your customers via social media, but you don’t own the audience there.
An email list is something you own and can continually contact customers or leads anytime.
That’s why you need an email marketing service. These services allow you to send bulk automated emails to your subscribers. Not only that, you can segment users into groups, track their performance, and create marketing workflows.
Constant Contact is the most beginner-friendly and fastest-growing email marketing service out there. It boasts an impressive 97% deliverability rate and offers a handful of time-saving automation that every small business could use.
Out of the many email service providers we’ve tried, we really like the user interface. From the moment you make your account, Constant Contact guides you through their simple process. You can create email newsletters, social media posts, landing pages, and events in minutes.
One of Constant Contact’s most unique aspects is its ability to segment the audience based on engagement level. Sure, it’s got all the standard segmentations, such as dividing contacts by location, membership, sales, email activity, and more.
That said, Constant Contact lets you segment your audience into four categories: most engaged, somewhat engaged, least engaged, and everyone else. For example, your most engaged customers could be your most loyal subscribers, to whom you can send upsell or cross-sell promotions.
Pricing: Plans start at $12 per month. If you need more storage, users, and advanced features, there are also higher-tiered plans.
Pros:
Very affordable pricing
It offers powerful integrations such as Facebook ads and eCommerce platforms.
Constant Contact offers 200+ templates to fit your needs.
Cons:
No advanced dynamic tags.
Why We Recommend Using Constant Contact: You can’t go wrong with Constant Contact as it’s good at just about everything. We especially like that they offer really outstanding customer support via live chat, email, phone calls, and community support, along with a large library of helpful resources. That way, you’ll always get your questions answered.
Brevo, formerly known as Sendinblue, is an email and SMS marketing software perfect for small businesses.
One of the best things about Brevo is that you receive unlimited email lists and contacts no matter which plan you choose. With contact segmentation, you can easily target smaller groups and engage them with relevant content.
Their advanced plans go well beyond just email marketing. They offer a sales CRM, live chat, landing page builder, and Facebook Ads integration. That means that for the price you are paying, you’re getting a lot more value than most email marketing services can offer.
Brevo is also known for high deliverability, guaranteeing up to 97%. That’s because they support many setup options, including email API, SMTP relay, webhook, and plugin. This means you can send bulk emails and have more control over your batch sends.
Pricing: Brevo is free to get started. However, their Starter plan begins at $25 per month and has unlimited contacts.
Pros:
You will receive access to an unlimited number of contacts on any plan.
A built-in CRM app is included.
You can send advanced automation campaigns based on list-based behaviors.
Cons:
You have to pay for a higher-tiered plan to get access to more advanced reporting features.
Why We Recommend Using Brevo: We like Brevo as an all-in-one marketing automation software that can do a little bit of everything. For instance, you can send timely SMS messages to promote your products and personalize them accordingly.
Drip is the best email marketing service for advanced users, especially for businesses looking to deliver hyper-personalized campaigns to their audience.
One of Drip’s standout features is its ability to create seamless workflow automation. The visual workflow builder makes it easy to visualize and customize user journeys.
When building your workflows, there are intuitive trigger options based on page visitors, tags, and other on-site behaviors that start the flow. Then, choose from dozens of actions to build the desired automation sequence.
If you’re running an online store, Drip offers integrations for WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Shopify. That allows you to send strategically segmented campaigns to visitors and customers. For example, there are templates for just about everything, including cart abandonment emails and workflows.
Pricing: Pricing starts at $39 per month for up to 2,500 people on your email list. The price increases the more subscribers you have. All plans come with a 14-day free trial.
Pros:
Drip has plenty of merge tags that dynamically replace content within an email based on the info you’ve collected in your contact or lead forms.
You can A/B split test automation workflows to see which one performs better and ultimately provides the best conversion rates.
It offers an eCommerce revenue attribution feature, so you know exactly how much revenue is generated from your email marketing campaigns.
Cons:
Some learning curve is involved. For example, there are countless Liquid tags to learn about, which can be a lot of information if you’re used to using simpler email marketing services.
Why We Recommend Using Drip: At WPBeginner, we switched from MailChimp to Drip largely because of its more advanced segmentation and personalization features. That allows us to send more relevant and targeted campaigns to our readers.
While adding your mobile number to your WordPress site might seem convenient, it’s unprofessional and exposes your personal privacy.
That’s why you want to get a virtual business phone number and use a dedicated business phone service. This is a secure and professional solution. It allows you to:
Make calls over the internet: Eliminate expensive phone bills.
Use call forwarding, routing, and recording: Enhance team collaboration and capture valuable customer interactions.
Track call metrics: Gain insights into wait times, hold times, and call duration to optimize your customer service strategy.
In essence, a business phone service is essential for any business that wants to improve customer service and effectively manage inbound and outbound calls.
Nextiva is the best business phone service, and it makes it easy to manage communication between you and your customers.
The phone service is highly efficient and reliable, and you get helpful features beyond voice calling. There are plenty of features your call team can take advantage of, such as advanced call routing, voicemail to email and text, unlimited free domestic calling, text messages, and more.
Nextiva offers a treasure trove of data to help support your decision-making. You get critical information such as talk time, net promote score, first-time resolution rate, etc. Call center and sales team managers can easily interpret the data and come up with solutions to better improve performance.
If you’re using a traditional landline office phone system, Nextiva makes it easy to transition to a VoIP system. That means you can run your calls over the internet rather than complex landlines. They work with a variety of VoIP phones, headsets, and other call devices.
Pricing: Nextiva pricing starts at $14.95 per month per user for unlimited voice calling.
Pros:
Nextiva provides 99.99% uptime for excellent reliability.
They offer 24/7 customer support, so you always get the help you need.
It’s an all-in-one phone system with a wide range of features to handle both outbound, inbound, and internal team communication.
Cons:
Somewhat pricy, but the value is definitely there for what you pay for.
Why We Recommend Using Nextiva: Nextiva gives you everything you need to handle communication in your business. They offer a comprehensive set of VoIP service features that help you take your customer service to the next level. That way, your agents can work efficiently, and your customers can get their issues resolved quickly.
WPBeginner readers also get a special Nextiva Coupon to unlock an additional 21% off your purchase.
RingCentral is an affordable alternative to RingCentral that offers high-quality business phone services. Despite its cost-effective price, it doesn’t skimp out on quality.
With the entry plan, you get unlimited calls and texts, team messaging, file sharing, and other basic features you need. For smaller teams of 20 people or less, the $20 per user per month price point is a great deal.
We like the call routing capabilities, which allow you to direct callers to various departments and extensions. You can create and manage custom answering rules to ensure you get callers to the right people. You can even route the most important calls directly to your mobile device.
Pricing: Plans start at $20 per user per month, billed annually. Pricing varies depending on number of users and features available.
Pros:
RingCentral comes with video meetings, team messaging, and screen sharing.
It integrates with useful tools like Google Workspace and Microsoft, so you can easily connect data across platforms.
You can enjoy a user-friendly interface that allows you to easily understand where and how to use all of its features.
Cons:
You need to pay for the higher-priced tiers to get access to Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menu options.
Why We Recommend Using RingCentral: RingCentral is a good beginner-friendly option for small businesses just getting started with phone services. It lacks a few advanced capabilities that Nextiva has but gives you all the essential features needed for any business phone service.
The good news is that WPBeginner users get 33% off when they use our special RingCentral coupon code.
Ooma is one of the top VoIP providers for small businesses. It offers virtual numbers, collaboration tools, call forwarding, voice mail, and more. It’s great for small businesses without IT teams because it provides everything you need in an easy-to-use way.
Ooma features a virtual receptionist feature, which is great for directing calls for your small business. You can easily set up a custom greeting, provide a menu of options that guides callers to the right departments, and send them to various extensions. It also helps to reduce the call load and average wait times, which your customers will appreciate.
Every Ooma plan has a mobile app so that your agents can easily answer or make calls while on the go. You can do all the important tasks, such as checking your voicemail, reviewing stats, and more.
That said, when comparing Nextiva vs. RingCentral and Ooma, this service isn’t ideal for call centers since it doesn’t support desk and conference phones.
Pricing: Plans begin at $19.95 per month per user. No contract is necessary, so you won’t be tied to a year-long commitment.
Pros:
Ooma offers unlimited domestic calling in the US, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Canada.
Pricing is relatively affordable.
Easy to use mobile app.
Cons:
Missing a few advanced features unless you upgrade to the higher plans.
Why We Recommend Using Ooma: We like Ooma because it’s ready to use out-of-the-box. It requires zero technical installation, and just about everything is already configured when installed. They use an auto-configuration technology that automatically detects all the settings needed for your system to work.
Live chat software is a tool that helps connect customers to an actual human support representative so that you can resolve their issues in real time. That way, your customers can get the answers they’re looking for quickly.
They’ll spend less time sifting through your knowledge base and waiting to find a solution.
This goes hand-in-hand with your business phone services. By offering live chats on your website, you provide a more omnichannel customer experience, reducing your call load and average handling time.
Groove is a popular help desk software used by big brands like HubSpot, AppSumo, AT&T, and CloudApp.
It offers all the essential features a small business needs to deliver fast and responsive customer service. These include a knowledge base builder, shared inbox, collaboration and reporting tools, and live chat support.
Using Groove, we quickly realized how accessible the software feels. Think of it like a simple inbox that manages all customer communication in one place. Each conversation can be assigned to specific team members, so it’s clear who’s responsible for managing each conversion. Even better, you can label and assign agents to conversations based on certain conditions, such as department or type of inquiry.
Sticking to the theme of simplicity, Groove makes reporting as easy to understand as possible. Rather than giving you a ton of analytics that may confuse small businesses, they stick to the most important options.
For example, some of the metrics include response time, agent performance, busiest times, customer feedback, number of customers helped, and number of resolutions.
Pricing: Starts at $16 per user per month, billed annually. There is also a free trial available.
Pros:
Groove integrations with the most popular business tools like Shopify, Slack, and Mailchimp.
The knowledge base builder is customizable, and there are time-saving AI writing tools to help you quickly create support articles.
Live chat lets you deliver fast service to customers
Cons:
Groove isn’t the most customizable in terms of layouts and themes.
Why We Recommend Using Groove: Groove ranks as our top choice based on its value and ease of use. The entire system is easy to adopt, so you can better manage your support reps without having to spend a lot of time training them on how to use the software.
Heroic Inbox is the best WordPress-powered help desk and customer support market in the market. It allows you to easily manage customer emails and support tickets right within your WordPress site.
This can streamline workflow by keeping all support-related tasks in one place so you can respond to customer inquiries faster.
After testing the inbox, we found that it comes with all the features you’ll need to manage support emails. For instance, you can create canned responses, add notes to conversations, track your ticket history, and assign messages to team members.
Best of all, it pulls multiple inboxes into one place. Chances are, you may have various inboxes to respond to, such as sales, support, customer service, and partnerships. This allows you to ensure that an important message is never missed.
If you want to add knowledge base capabilities, then you’ll simply need to download Heroic KB, which gives you the ability to add a searchable knowledge base to your website.
Pricing: Starts at $199.50 per year.
Pros:
Manages customer service inquiries directly in WordPress.
You can connect multiple inboxes in one place.
It offers the ability to add notes and assign tickets to users.
Cons:
It doesn’t have live chat capabilities.
Why We Recommend Using Heroic Inbox: Juggling a lot of software can be a problem for a lot of small businesses. With Heroic Inbox, you can manage all inquiries in your WordPress dashboard. Since it lives within the WordPress ecosystem, it also seamlessly connects with other plugins, such as WooCommerce.
LiveChat is an all-in-one customer service software that works seamlessly for WordPress website owners. With over 35,000+ businesses that trust LiveChat, it’s a very popular tool for building live chatbots.
You can create a chatbot that asks the user questions before they’re automatically transferred to the right agent. During the chat, the agent is able to share files back and forth with the customer, send calendar links, or complete a purchase. On top of that, you can set up canned frequently asked questions type of responses to save time.
Beyond that, you can add pre-chat survey forms before and after each live chat session. That way, you’re able to evaluate your sales reps and customer support agents and how they’re performing.
It even integrates with popular tools like HubSpot, Zendesk, and Google Analytics, so you can better understand where your customers are coming from and who they are.
Pricing: LiveChat starts at $20 per person, billed annually, with higher-priced plans that track more users and better features. There’s also a free plugin available.
Pros:
Plenty of integrations to seamlessly connect data across platforms.
You can initiate a chat with a visitor as they are browsing on your site.
There are lots of customization options to help users find a solution.
Cons:
Price can quickly add up for large teams.
Why We Recommend Using LiveChat: LiveChat is an AI-powered help desk software that has a lot of advanced tools to help you sell more. For example, their custom forms, product cards, and AI automation can help turn inquiries into actual sales.
HubSpot Chat is an all-in-one marketing platform that also offers a chatbot builder and live chat feature.
You’re able to customize the live chat design to help route leads and customers to the right person on your team. The live chat widget can be edited to match the look and feel of your brand. You can even send targeted welcome messages on your live chat widget based on segments of your audience or different web pages.
The routing feature works during a chat, where your services team passes a lead to a sales rep. In addition, it provides useful automation features so you can deliver canned responses for faster response times.
Since HubSpot is an all-in-one tool, all chats are automatically stored in the CRM. That means your team will have a clear view of each customer interaction.
Pricing: It’s free to get started. But if you want the suite of marketing tools or CRM, you’ll need to buy the entire package. Prices vary based on what suite you choose.
Pros:
HubSpot Chat is free to use.
You can connect the tool to Slack so your team gets immediate notifications when a visitor requests to speak with your support team.
You’re able to route leads to anyone on your team.
Cons:
It’s missing advanced features such as post-chat survey forms.
Why We Recommend Using HubSpot Chat: We like HubSpot Chat because it offers all the essential features of live chat software and is absolutely free to use. That said, if you want more advanced automation or more sales-related features like product recommendations, then you may want to consider LiveChat or ChatBot instead.
ChatBot is the best helpdesk software for creating AI-generated answers to customer questions.
Where ChatBot stands out is its ability to build visual workflows that help customers get their questions answered and guide them to a sale. It comes with pre-built templates so that you can use them out of the box. For example, after a customer asks a question about a specific product category, you can immediately offer a limited-time discount to incentivize visitors to take action.
If site visitors want to chat with a real person, you can easily forward them to a live customer support representative. That said, the customization options are quite limited compared to LiveChat.
But, when it comes to AI automation, ChatBot can make your life easier. For example, depending on how users interact with your site and chatbot, you can add them to a segmentation and then import them to a CRM or email marketing service. This is great for nurturing leads and sending follow-up emails.
Pricing: Chatbot starts at $52 per month, billed annually or $65 month-to-month. However, there is a 14-day free trial, with no credit card required.
Pros:
ChatBot saves time with its powerful and expansive automation features.
It allows you to segment lists and trigger actions based on visitor behavior.
It integrates with WooCommerce and WordPress.
Cons:
ChatBot lacks high-level live chat features.
Why We Recommend Using ChatBot: If you want to automate your helpdesk and chat support, ChatBot is the way to go. It has many templates that help guide users into a sale.
Managing your team members is arguably one of the most important functions of a business. No matter what type of business you run, you’ll need to pay your employees and manage their hours.
With HR payroll software, you can automatically send out paychecks through bank direct deposit, manage PTO and bonuses, streamline employee onboarding, withhold a percentage for taxes, and more.
When your HR and payroll are organized, employees know what to expect, and you don’t have to worry about running into tax compliance issues.
Best of all, HR software streamlines all the tedious admin tasks that you would otherwise have to do by yourself.
Gusto is the best payroll and HR software that helps you automate both basic and advanced payroll tasks for employees and contractors. With its beginner-friendly approach to payroll management, it’s definitely a tool to have in your corner to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Even if you’re a small business without a full accounting team, Gusto makes it easy to handle payroll. It automatically runs payroll for you as many times a month as you need, and taxes are filed automatically. In addition, it automatically syncs health insurance, workers’ compensation, time tracking, 401K, PTO, and more.
Besides payroll, Gusto makes hiring and onboarding a breeze. There are features like custom offer letters, onboarding checklists, document signing, and even software account creation.
Pricing: Gusto starts at $40 per month, plus $6 per month per additional user you add.
Pros:
Relatively affordable to use.
Very beginner-friendly for both business owners and employees.
Gusto is a self-service tool for employees where they can hop online to check their pay stubs and important documents and request time off without the need for HR to intervene.
Cons:
Gusto is only available in the United States.
Why We Recommend Using Gusto: Gusto is an all-encompassing tool for payroll and HR tasks. You don’t have to worry about the nitty-gritty tasks like filing payroll and tracking all the taxes withheld. Plus, its higher plans offer next-day deposits, so employees get paid faster.
BambooHR is an excellent HR software and payroll solution for small businesses. The program is better suited for human resource tasks like compensation, hiring, onboarding, and company culture.
Inside, you get an application tracking system (ATS) that helps you speed up the hiring process and weed out potential applicants who don’t meet the job role requirements. Its automated alert features ensure you stay on schedule and keep candidates in the loop during the hiring process.
Once you’ve made your decision, you can use one of the many offer letter templates that come with auto-fill features so the new hire can sign and accept everything digitally.
That said, Bamboo HR also does all of the essential payroll tasks. It automates tax filing, so you don’t have to do it manually. As a result, you’ll avoid tax penalties and ensure you accurately report your employee earnings and taxes withheld.
Pricing: BambooHR offers free pricing quotes. To receive customized pricing, you will need to complete their contact form.
Pros:
BambooHR offers self-service tools so employees can access information such as tax forms and pay stubs online.
It automates the payroll process to avoid mistakes.
The ATS makes hiring much easier and faster.
Cons:
BambooHR is not as contractor-friendly as Gusto since it doesn’t have many features that cater to freelancers.
Why We Recommend Using BambooHR: BambooHR is a great choice if you have a remote team based internationally (outside of the U.S.). It makes it easy to manage your hiring and payroll across multiple countries.
QuickBooks is a payroll software designed to make life easier for small business owners. It’s primarily used for accounting tasks, allowing you to calculate all your balance sheets and perform payroll.
One key area where QuickBooks shines is that it offers same-day or next-day direct deposit processing, depending on the plan you choose. You also get useful features such as automated tax calculations and payroll, business receipt capture, paycheck creation, and more.
There’s a dedicated mobile app, so employees can easily access their PTO and health information and even look into their paystubs on the go. For administrators, you can manage payroll from anywhere, ensuring your team never misses payday.
Pricing: Price starts at $37.50 per month, plus an additional $6 per additional employee per month.
Pros:
Quickbooks offers a 30-day free trial.
For Elite users, QuickBooks Payroll provides a tax penalty protection of up to $25,000 per year.
QuickBooks Payroll integrates with QuickBooks Online, meaning you get a payroll and accounting system in one.
Cons:
There are limited third-party integrations.
Why We Recommend Using QuickBooks: If you’re focused on getting your accounting and payroll right, then QuickBooks is the way to go. With the tax penalty protection, you’re getting great coverage. That means if you make an error, they’ll not only help you to fix the issue but also cover any penalty and interest fines along with it.
Juggling customer data across scattered Excel sheets can be chaos. You may deal with missed follow-ups, forgotten birthdays, unsent emails, mixed signals, and frustrated teams and customers.
CRM apps eliminate this nightmare. They consolidate all customer data into a single, accessible platform. This empowers your sales, marketing, and customer support teams to:
Effortlessly access information: No more scrambling for details.
Boost efficiency: Automate tasks and free up time for strategic work.
Sales reps can prioritize high-value opportunities and close deals faster. Plus, marketers can leverage customer insights to craft impactful campaigns. Customer support gains a complete view of each interaction, providing exceptional service every time.
HubSpot CRM is the most popular CRM software on the market. It is cost-effective and offers a wide range of features, making it a great choice for most small businesses. You can get started with the free plan, which already gives you access to unlimited users and contacts.
Where HubSpot excels is its all-in-one capabilities. Since it combines sales, marketing, customer service, CMS, and operation hubs, you can easily connect data between departments. For example, you can easily pass contacts from your marketing team to the sales department without having to sync information to another system.
HubSpot is also really easy to navigate. It provides a full picture of customer interactions and comes with customizable reporting dashboards so that you can see how your team is performing. By looking at the opportunities and deal stages, you can quickly see what’s currently in the pipeline and focus on high-leverage prospects who are ready to buy.
Pricing: Hubspot CRM is free to get started. If you want the entire marketing suite, it’s $800 per month for 3 seats, billed annually, and an extra $45 per month per additional user. HubSpot Sales suite costs $90 per month per seat.
Pros:
HubSpot has an easy-to-use interface.
There are tons of features and even apps that you can download to make your experience better.
Visual dashboards and reporting make it very easy to track team performance and spot opportunities for growth.
Cons:
While HubSpot has a very generous free plan, its pricing gets steep quickly if you wish to upgrade.
Why We Recommend Using HubSpot: HubSpot is one of those can’t-miss tools for beginners. Sure, it could be more customizable or offer more affordable plans. But with that said, its free plan is enough to get small teams started.
FunnelKit Automations is the best CRM and marketing automation engine for WooCommerce. It’s filled with a wide range of features to help get your online more repeat sales and higher order values.
Geared towards e-commerce business owners, you have a complete 360-degree contact view of your customers. You’ll be able to see their name, gender, email, tags, lists, geographical location, and custom field data.
In addition to the CRM tool, you can build high-converting checkout pages and flows. The drag-and-drop builder connects with other major page builders, such as Divi, Elementor, Oxygen, and Gutenberg.
Once customers complete the purchase, you can create upsell pages to showcase higher-tier products, increasing your total order value.
Pricing: FunnelKit starts at $99.50 per year. That said, there is a free version as well.
Pros:
You get plenty of automation templates and workflows to increase conversions.
You can view the customer’s complete profile, including purchase history, order placed, etc.
Everything can be tracked, including what pages and workflows led to revenue.
Cons:
You’ll need a mailer plugin, such as WP Mail SMTP, since WordPress isn’t built for high-volume email.
Why We Recommend Using FunnelKit Automation: If you’re running an online store, adding FunnelKit Automation is a no-brainer. Keep your opt-in leads and customers organized so that you can send them more relevant product recommendations.
Pipedrive is a sales-focused CRM app for small businesses. It’s an all-in-one sales platform to boost revenue and track all of your leads and customers.
What we like about Pipedrive is its smart, in-platform tips. It comes with a sales assistant that provides performance tips and recommended features to help your team get acclimated to the software. For example, if you’re not sending follow-up emails after demo calls, it might send reminders to your reps.
Pipedrive goes beyond simple CRM with powerful automation features. Imagine automatically nurturing leads with timely emails, assigning tasks, and moving deals through your pipeline.
These automated workflows free up your sales reps to focus on closing high-value deals, not repetitive tasks.
Pricing: Pipedrive begins at $14 per seat per month, billed annually. But there’s a free 14-day trial you can get started with.
Pros:
Fairly affordable to use.
The smart assistant feature helps you improve your team performance.
It has a lead enrichment feature, which scrapes data online to find information about your prospects based on the email you’ve collected.
Cons:
It lacks phone support.
Why We Recommend Using Pipedrive: If you want a comprehensive sales tool to help manage your leads and drive home more revenue, Pipedrive is a solid choice. They offer many AI-powered features to make your life easier and save a lot of time.
Aside from these top business tools that we mentioned above, we also use and recommend the following plugins to better manage our WordPress sites.
WPFormsis the most beginner-friendly contact form plugin used by over 6,000,000 sites. It features an intuitive drag-and-drop form builder, allowing you to build beautiful contact forms, payment forms, user registration forms, multi-page forms, and more.
All in One SEO is a WordPress SEO plugin that helps you improve your WordPress SEO. It provides powerful on-page SEO optimization tools to help search engines better crawl and index your site, among many other capabilities.
SeedProdis the ultimate drag-and-drop page builder plugin for WordPress. With this software, you can design high-converting and beautiful pages that convert visitors into leads and leads into customers. You can create everything from landing pages and custom home pages to 404 pages and more.
MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It brings the power of Google Analytics right to your WordPress dashboard, so you can get detailed reports of important metrics to see what’s working and what could be improved.
OptinMonster is the best lead generation and popup plugin that helps you convert website visitors into subscribers and customers. With this tool, you can create a wide range of campaigns, including popups, scroll boxes, floating bars, and fullscreen welcome mats.
MemberPress is a popular WordPress membership plugin for building membership websites. It has advanced membership features, including the ability to create gated content, add member levels, accept payments, create members-only forums, and more.
PushEngage is a web push notification software that helps you engage and retain visitors once they’ve left your site. When users leave, you can send them all types of reminders, such as product announcements, blog post notifications, cart abandonment reminders, and more.
WP Simple Pay is the best Stripe payments plugin for WordPress. It allows you to easily create payment forms or buttons that accept 13+ payment methods and collect recurring payments.
Smash Balloonis a social media feeds plugin for WordPress websites. It allows you to display custom Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube feeds on your site to boost followers and engagement.
WooCommerce is the world’s most popular eCommerce platform. It is cost-effective, super-flexible, and easy to use for beginners. You can easily create product pages, accept payments, manage orders, and much more. Basically, you can create your entire online store from scratch.
Frequently Asked Questions About Business Tools
What should you look for in a business tool?
The most important factors to consider when selecting a business tool are:
Integration with WordPress: If you own a WordPress site or WooCommerce store, you’ll want a business tool that easily connects the platforms. That way, no crucial information is lost in translation.
Ease of Use: The tool should be user-friendly and have an intuitive interface. Small businesses often have limited resources and may not have dedicated IT personnel, so it’s essential that the tool is easy for anyone on the team to use.
Scalability: Will it be able to grow with your business? Make sure the software can accommodate increasing data, users, and business complexity.
Cost-effectiveness: Evaluate the cost of the software pricing and its value for your business. Consider both upfront costs and ongoing fees. Some tools offer scalable pricing plans, which can be beneficial for small businesses.
Feature Set: Identify the specific features that are essential for your business. Whether it’s task management, CRM, eCommerce capabilities, or content marketing, make sure the service aligns with your business needs.
Customization: Look for a tool that allows some level of customization. This ensures that the tool can be adapted to meet your business’s unique requirements.
Customer Support: Reliable customer support is crucial. Check the availability, response times, and level of support provided. This is especially important when technical issues arise.
Security: Security is vital, especially when dealing with customer data. The tool should adhere to industry security standards and have measures in place to protect your business and customer information.
Mobile Compatibility: With an increasing number of users accessing websites through different devices, the software should be mobile-friendly.
Community and Reviews: Check for testimonials and user feedback to gain insights into the experiences of other small businesses using the tool.
Data Backup and Recovery: Make sure the software has reliable data backup and recovery mechanisms to prevent data loss in case of unexpected events. That said, if you don’t already have a WordPress backup plugin, Duplicator is our go-to recommendation.
Do business tools integrate with your WordPress site?
Yes, the best WordPress plugins should seamlessly integrate with the most popular third-party business tools. However, if there isn’t an integration, we recommend using Uncanny Automator.
It is the best automation plugin, allowing you to create unlimited automated workflows in WordPress. That means you can connect your website to a specific tool to complete an action.
Let’s say every time someone completes your contact form, you want to automatically add those contacts to your prospects list to your CRM tool. You can create an automated workflow through Uncanny Automator that will easily execute that action for you.
Are there any free business tools available?
Yes, many of these tools offer a free version with limited features. That means you can test the product and see if it meets your needs. That said, you can also check out our list of the best free business tools for small businesses.
Podcasts are a popular media format that is growing rapidly. During last year alone, 220,786 new podcasts were launched, which is a 9% increase since 2022.
However, many beginners find it technically challenging to start a podcast.
There is too much information about hosting media files, buying equipment, and recording good-quality audio. It is enough to overwhelm and discourage users who are less tech-savvy.
Here, we will try to make it easy for you by showing you how to start a podcast, step by step. We will also show you how to start promoting your podcast and, more importantly, how to monetize and turn it into a profitable business.
Here is an outline of everything that we will cover in this guide:
A podcast is an episodic series of audio files that users can subscribe to, download, and listen to.
There can also be video podcasts, but they are less common.
For your podcast to work, you need to have an audio file and an RSS Feed that users can subscribe to stay updated and download new episodes when they come out.
Because WordPress has a built-in RSS feed system for blogs, many podcasters use WordPress as their podcast website platform.
You can connect your podcast website with podcasting apps like iTunes to make it easier for millions of users to listen and subscribe. We will cover this later in the article.
Now that you know what a podcast is and how it works, let’s take a look at how to find ideas to make a successful podcast.
Finding Podcast Topics and Niche
Around 27,557 podcast episodes are published every day (source: PodcastIndex).
In order to compete, you need to find the topics you will cover in your own podcast.
Here are some tips that may help you narrow down the topics and find your niche.
Follow your passion – Choosing topics that excite you will help you create better content that is engaging for your target audience as well.
Pick a lane – Instead of podcasting about random things, try to stick with topics within a defined subject area. This will help you more quickly establish expertise and authority while finding a target audience. It will also help you with monetization and sponsorships in the future.
Think like your audience – You can build an audience persona based on the topics you choose. Who is your audience, and what other things do they like? What are their pain points that you can address in your podcast?
Research your competition – Look at what other podcasters in your niche are doing. Can you build on that with your unique perspective and voice?
Choose your podcast format – Would you like to do interviews, solo commentary, or something different? Choose a format that suits your topic and your strengths.
Now that you have made up your mind about what you want to say, let’s take a look at the things you will need to make all this happen.
Things You Need to Set Up Your Podcast
For a professional podcasting setup, there are a few things that you will need to get started.
The first thing is a website or a blog where people can learn more about you and your podcast.
The second thing is the equipment to record your podcast episodes.
Lastly, you need to have the right tools to publish your podcast on the internet so you can get maximum subscribers and reach.
We will walk you through the whole process, step by step.
Step 1. Website Setup: WordPress Hosting and Domain Name
The most important step in building a website is to choose the right platform.
We recommend using WordPress.org, also known as self-hosted WordPress, for setting up your podcasting website.
WordPress is free to use. You can install plugins, customize your site design, and, most importantly, make money from your site without any restrictions (See the difference between WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org).
Why We Recommend WordPress:
WordPress is open source and gives you full control and ownership of your podcast content.
WordPress has thousands of plugins, which are like apps for your website. These plugins help you connect your site to any third-party tool, service, or payment gateway you need.
WordPress is beginner-friendly, and you can set up your podcast website without hiring a developer.
Setting Up WordPress
To get started, you will need a domain name and a website hosting account.
A domain name is your website’s address on the internet. This is what people type to get to your website. For example, google.com or wpbeginner.com.
Web hosting is your website’s house on the internet. This is where all your files and images are stored. Every website needs web hosting.
The typical cost of web hosting is $7.99 per month, and a domain name usually costs around $14.99 per year.
This is a lot for someone just starting out. Thankfully, Bluehost has agreed to offer our users a free domain name and up to 61% off on web hosting.
In real numbers, this means you can start your podcasting website for only $2.75 per month.
We recommend using Bluehost because they are one of the official WordPress-recommended hosting providers and one of the largest web hosting services in the world.
Other hosting companies we recommend:Hostinger ($2.69 /month, free domain included) and SiteGround ($2.99/month, free domain included).
The next thing you will need is a good media hosting service.
Podcast episodes are large audio files. Serving them from your web host will consume a lot of server resources, making your website slow and often unresponsive.
For the best user experience, we recommend that you use a podcast-specific media hosting platform like Blubrry.
Most smart podcasters use a separate podcast hosting service to serve their podcast files. It is the smartest and most efficient way to run a podcast.
Why we recommend Blubrry:
Blubrry is optimized for podcasting using WordPress. They offer a powerful plugin called Blubrry PowerPress, which makes it easy to manage your podcast from the WordPress site.
It comes with a large user community made up of many successful podcasters. If you need help, join the forums to learn from others who have been podcasting for a long time.
Blubrry has great tools like ID3 tagging, iTunes optimization, automatic media artwork management, etc.
As your podcast grows, you will need to invest in new tools to produce higher-quality podcasts.
As a beginner, the most important tool you need is a good microphone.
Please do not use your computer’s built-in microphone to record your podcast. Your users will instantly notice the terrible sound quality.
There are two main types: XLR and USB microphones.
XLR microphones are like professional cameras. They give high-quality audio but need an audio interface or mixer to connect them to your computer. This can be a bit complex for beginners.
USB microphones are like point-and-shoot cameras. They are easy to use, and you can just plug them into your computer and start recording. They are great for beginners. However, the sound quality might not be as good as XLR microphones.
We recommend choosing a USB microphone. They are beginner-friendly and require less technical knowledge to operate.
However, if you are willing to spend extra time and money for better sound quality, then choose an XLR microphone. This is what most professional podcasters use.
There are three popular mic choices among podcasters.
Heil PR-40 (XLR connection, not USB) – This is what the pros use. You will need to buy an audio mixer as well.
Here is some other equipment that you probably want to purchase: a mic arm, shock mount, and a pop filter.
For WPBeginner’s audio/video setup, we use the Rode Podcaster kit with a mic arm and shock mount.
You will also need a decent headphone. We are using Sony MDR7506.
Once you have the right podcasting equipment, you will be ready for the next step: planning and recording your first podcast episode.
Step 4. Planning Your First Few Podcast Episodes
You need to plan your podcast episodes before you sit down to record them. There are several important decisions that you need to make.
1. Episode content
What will be the topics for your first few episodes? You can plan your content in an orderly fashion, work on the content by creating an outline, and then digging into the details.
2. Length of Episodes
Podcasts can be from 20 minutes to over an hour long. The duration of your episodes depends on your content and audience.
There are no strict rules about the ideal length for a good podcast episode. However, episodes between 20-40 minutes tend to do better.
If you have good content, then don’t cut it down just so it can fit the specific length. Similarly, don’t drag content too much so that you can fill the desired episode length.
3. Supporting Media
You will also want to work on intro music, background music, or other sounds you may want to add to your podcast for a dramatic effect.
The following are a few places where you can find license-free music and soundtracks to use in your podcast episodes or as your theme music. Carefully review the licensing terms before using any track in your podcast:
You can sit down and record by just looking at a simple outline of your ideas. However, this might give your users the impression that you didn’t do your homework.
You need to actually sit down and write down the script. This helps you stay focused and makes you sound more professional and prepared.
You can still go on and speak off the script during the recording, but having an actual script keeps you on track and results in better-quality content.
After spending some time planning your episodes and giving more thought to your content, it is time to record your first podcast.
Step 5. Recording Your First Podcast
To record your podcast, you will need audio recording software. This software will help you record and edit your audio files.
The best podcast recording software used by most podcasters is Audacity. It is a free, cross-platform, and open-source software capable of recording studio-quality professional podcasts.
After installing Audacity, you need to open it up and create a new project from the File menu.
To record your voice, simply click on the record button.
Now, feel free to record your podcast. Don’t worry about awkward pauses, breaks, coughing, or any glitches you might make while narrating.
You can edit the recording as many times as you want.
You can also import music files from File » Import and set them as background music.
Audacity is a very powerful tool, and it is not possible for us to even cover its basic features in this article. However, TeamAudacity has an extensive Wiki with detailed tutorials.
We recommend that you go through these tutorials. Becoming familiar with the software will take some time, but it’s worth your time and effort.
Once you have recorded your podcast, you need to export it.
Most podcasters export their audio files in the MP3 format because it creates smaller file sizes with good quality.
You also need to be smart about naming your podcast files. Remember, podcasts are episodic series, so it would be best to use a naming practice that uses an episode or serial number in the file name.
Some suggestions would be WPB001.mp3 or WPBep001.mp3.
Then, you need to save the final version of your podcast file to a separate folder on your computer.
Step 6. Publishing Your Podcast With WordPress
After you have created a few episodes and you are satisfied with their quality, it’s time to learn how to publish your podcast with WordPress.
You will need to log in to the admin area of your WordPress site.
Upon activation, you will see a PowerPress menu item in the WordPress admin menu. Clicking on it will take you to the plugin’s settings page.
If you are using Blubrry to host your podcasting files, then you need to click on the ‘Let’s Connect’ button to configure the Blubrry statistics and hosting services.
This will bring up a popup, where you will be asked to log in to your Blubrry account and give the plugin permission to access your account.
Next, you will need to fill out the rest of the information on the settings page.
Start by providing a title for your feed in the ‘Feeds’ tab.
After that, you can upload the artwork by switching to the ‘Podcast Artwork’ tab.
This will be the square thumbnail displayed next to your podcast in podcast listening apps. Make sure that it represents your podcast branding.
The rest of the plugin settings are quite self-explanatory, and the default options will work for most users.
We will come back to the Apple iTunes settings later in this article.
Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings. Your WordPress website is now ready to publish your podcast.
Step 7. Upload Media Files to Blubrry
Before you can publish a podcast episode with WordPress, you first need to upload the podcast file to your media hosting service, Blubrry.
Log in to your Blubrry hosting account and then click on the ‘Set Website’ option in the dashboard.
On the next screen, choose ‘I already have a website’.
Below that, you must provide the URL of your WordPress website.
Click the ‘Save’ button to store your changes.
Next, go to the Episodes » Publish New page. Here, simply provide a title and description for your podcast episode.
After that, click on the ‘Upload Episode File’ button to upload the podcast episode you recorded earlier.
Below that, you can schedule the release date and time. This allows you to schedule episodes to be released at a preferred time. Not choosing a date and time will make your episode available immediately.
Once you are finished, go ahead and click on the ‘Publish’ button to save your changes.
Step 8. Adding Your First Podcast in WordPress
Everything is now in order, and you are ready to add your first podcast in WordPress.
To publish your first podcast, you need to go to the Posts » Add New page.
It is highly recommended that you create a separate category for your podcast episodes.
This will allow you to keep your podcast episodes separate from the rest of your content. You will also be able to publicize your podcast feed more easily later on.
After that, you need to scroll down to the bottom of the page, and there you will see the ‘Podcast Episode’ box.
From here, click on the ‘Choose File’ button to select the file you uploaded to Blubrry.
If your podcast media file is not hosted on Blubrry, then you can just paste the media file URL here. Then, you need to click the ‘Verify’ button to ensure you have put the correct URL.
Now, you need to scroll back up to the post editor section. Give your blog post a suitable title and add a description for this podcast episode.
After that, you need to add the PowerPress Player block to the content area where you want to display the podcast player.
That’s all. You can now publish and preview your blog post, and you will see your podcast episode live with a beautiful player.
Congratulations, your WordPress podcasting site is ready to go live.
Step 9. Previewing Your Podcast With iTunes
Now that you have set up your podcast website with WordPress, it is time to submit your podcast to iTunes and get more subscribers.
Before submitting it to iTunes, you might want to check to see how your podcast will look on iTunes. To do this, launch iTunes, go to File » Subscribe to Podcast and enter your feed URL. Your feed URL will look like this:
http://www.example.com/feed/podcast
Don’t forget to replace example.com with your own domain name.
Once you enter the URL in iTunes, it will fetch the feed and display it. As you can see in the screenshot below, it fetched the artwork, description, subtitle, and more.
If everything looks good, then this means you are ready to submit your podcast to iTunes.
Step 10. Submitting Your Podcast to iTunes
To submit your podcast to iTunes, you need to download and install the latest version of iTunes on your computer. Next, launch iTunes and click on the iTunes Store button in the top right corner of the screen.
iTunes will now access the iTunes Store. Click on the ‘Podcasts’ menu, and then scroll a little to find the Podcasts Quick Links section. There, you will see a link to ‘Submit a podcast’.
This will open the podcast submission process. You will need an Apple ID to submit your podcast to the iTunes directory. If you are not already signed in, then iTunes will prompt you to log in.
The first thing you will need is your podcast feed URL. Your podcast feed URL will be like this:
http://example.com/feed/podcast
Don’t forget to replace example.com with your own domain name.
Since you are using PowerPress, your feed will already include the tags required by the iTunes Store for podcasts.
Upon submission, your podcast feed will be submitted to the iTunes review queue. After approval by the iTunes review staff, it will be added to the iTunes directory, and you will be notified via email.
Podcasting Resources to Help You Grow
Congratulations on starting your podcast with WordPress! If you want to make your podcast successful, then we recommend you join:
John is a good friend of ours, and he is an inspiration for most new podcasters. In just a few years, he has taken his podcast from $0 to 7 figure annual income. If you are thinking of starting a podcast, then you want to learn from him.
We recommend installing some must-have plugins on your WordPress website to extend its functionality and grow your podcast. Here are the most often recommended top plugins you can install right away:
All in One SEO for WordPress – The best WordPress SEO plugin on the market. It enables you to optimize your podcast website SEO to get more free traffic from search engines.
RafflePress – The best WordPress giveaway plugin that allows you to run viral giveaways in exchange for a podcast subscription, joining your email newsletter, or following you on social media.
MonsterInsights – Once you start getting listeners to your website, you will want to know which episodes they are listening to or downloading and where they are coming from. MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin that allows you to track all this data.
Making Money From Your Podcast
It will take a lot of your time and solid commitment to make your podcast successful. To make it all sustainable in the long run, you will need to find ways to monetize your podcast.
We have a detailed guide on how to make money online using your WordPress blog. All the items listed there can also be used on your podcasting website.
The following are some of the top ways to make money from a podcast.
If you think a business would benefit from sponsoring your podcast, feel free to reach out to them to be a sponsor. You’d be surprised how often this would work out for you.
Use affiliate marketing to recommend third-party products and services to your audience.
Are you looking for a way to sell fonts online using WordPress?
Fonts play a crucial role in graphic designing, branding, website building, and other creative tasks. Selling fonts is a great way to make money online, as you can create your own website and target different niches.
In this article, we will show you how to sell fonts online with WordPress.
Why Sell Fonts Online with WordPress?
There is a growing need for fonts, as graphic designers, bloggers, marketers, and business owners of all sizes need a font for their websites. This presents a huge potential opportunity for font designers, as you can easily sell typefaces online to make money.
While it can be a competitive industry, you can find gaps and target a specific niche. For example, you can sell fonts to designers who create logos or target creative artists who create digital art.
Selling online fonts also requires little investment compared to other businesses. To get started, you need only a web hosting platform, a domain name, and an eCommerce platform. For more details, please see how much it costs to build a website.
Plus, you don’t have to worry about storage or restocking with digital products like fonts compared to physical goods.
Now, there are many third-party websites where you can sell your fonts. However, you don’t get complete control over your digital products, and you’d have to share a percentage of your sales with the particular platform.
That’s why it’s better to create your own website to sell digital products, including fonts. You get complete control over your products and the flexibility to sell them however you want. Plus, you don’t have to split the money with anyone.
Which Platforms Should You Use to Sell Fonts Online?
When it comes to selling fonts, you’ll need an eCommerce platform. It will allow you to set up an online shop with a shopping cart, easily upload different fonts, add multiple payment options, and create different pages for your store.
Now, it’s important to select the right platform because moving to another platform in the future can be complicated and take a lot of time and effort.
Some platforms are better suited for physical products, while others are great for selling digital products.
WordPress is the best website builder in the market, and it powers over 43% of websites on the internet. On the other hand, Easy Digital Downloads is the best eCommerce plugin for WordPress for selling digital products like fonts.
Do note that there are 2 types of WordPress software. First, there is WordPress.com, which is a blog hosting platform. Then there is WordPress.org, which is also known as self-hosted WordPress.
To sell fonts online, you will need the WordPress.org platform because it gives you full control over your site.
That said, let’s see how you can easily sell fonts online with WordPress.
Step 1: Setting Up a WordPress Website
To start selling fonts online, you’ll first need a domain name, web hosting, and an SSL certificate.
A domain name is the website address that people will enter on the internet to visit your site. You can think of it as an address to your house but for the internet, like wpbeginner.com.
Web hosting is a place where your website lives online. It’s where all your website files, fonts, and other information are stored. To help you out, we’ve selected the best WordPress hosting services that you can purchase.
One of our top recommended hosting providers is SiteGround. It offers managed WordPress hosting for Easy Digital Downloads (EDD). It comes with a free SSL certificate, EDD pre-installed, all the optimization features, and you get a huge 80% off.
If you opted for SiteGround’s EDD hosting, then Easy Digital Downloads will come preinstalled.
However, if you’re using another WordPress hosting service, then you’ll need to install and activate the Easy Digital Downloads plugin. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Do note that for this tutorial, we will use the Easy Digital Downloads Pro version because it offers more features, payment gateways, and extensions. However, you can use the Easy Digital Downloads Lite version to get started for free.
Upon activation, you can go to the Downloads » Settings page from your WordPress admin panel. From here, you’ll need to enter the license key under the General tab. You will find the license key in the Easy Digital Downloads account area.
Next, you’ll need to scroll down and enter your business information. For instance, you can choose a business name, business type, address, and more.
You can also select the business country and region from the dropdown menu. This will help determine where your business is located and allow EDD to fill different fields automatically.
Once you’re done, click the ‘Save Changes’ button.
Step 3: Adding a Payment Method to Sell Fonts
Next, you’ll need to set up payment methods to accept payments from customers who buy fonts.
By default, Easy Digital Downloads include Stripe, PayPal, and credit cards as payment options.
Simply switch to the ‘Payments’ tab and then the ‘General’ tab in the Downloads settings.
After that, you can check the box next to each payment gateway you want to use on your website.
If you select multiple payment options, then you’ll have to set the default gateway. Simply click the ‘Default Gateway’ dropdown menu and choose the method that will appear default.
We recommend using Stripe, as it lets you accept credit card payments, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. This makes it a versatile payment option for users.
Next, you’ll need to configure each payment option you selected for selling fonts online. Do note that the process may vary for each service.
For example, we will select Stripe for this tutorial.
Simply click the ‘Stripe’ tab under the Payments settings. From here, click the ‘Connect with Stripe’ button.
After that, you can follow the onscreen instructions in the setup wizard to connect your Stripe account with Easy Digital Downloads.
Now, you’ll need to repeat these steps for other payment gateways you added to your digital store.
Lastly, you can switch to the ‘General’ tab and then select ‘Currency.’ Here, Easy Digital Downloads lets you select the default currency for your store.
Once you’re done, simply click the ‘Save Changes’ button.
Step 4: Adding Fonts as Digital Products
Now that you’ve set up a WordPress site and configured Easy Digital Downloads, the next step is to add your custom fonts to the store.
To create a digital product, you can head to Downloads from your WordPress dashboard and then click the ‘Add New’ button.
Next, you’ll need to enter the name of your font. This will appear at the top of the product page, so you’d typically want to use the font name.
Under that, you can also add a brief description of the custom font. Here, you can list out the details of your font, like specification, size, style, weights, variations, and more.
After that, you can scroll down to the ‘Download Details’ section.
Here, you’ll see options to set the price for a single product, bundle, or service. Then, under ‘Pricing Options,’ simply enter the price for your custom font.
If you’d like to price different variations of fonts differently, then you can also enable the ‘Enable variable pricing’ option.
Next, you can head to the ‘Download Files’ section. From here, you’ll need to enter a name for your file and then upload the font zip file.
If you have multiple files, then simply click the ‘Add New File’ button and upload different variations of the font.
The final step is adding a product image for your website. You can click the ‘Set Download Image’ option from the settings panel on the right and upload an image.
We recommend using a picture of the font as the download image. This way, a user will know what the font will look like before purchasing.
When you’re happy with all the settings, you can click the ‘Publish’ button at the top.
You can now repeat this step to add more fonts to your WordPress website and sell them online.
Step 5: Customize Your Font Download Emails
Easy Digital Downloads sends default emails to customers who purchase your fonts online.
However, the default email is plain and lacks branding or a logo.
You can customize these emails in Easy Digital Downloads by adding your own brand name or logo. This helps make your emails stand out and shows a professional touch.
To customize emails, you’ll need to go to Downloads » Settings from the WordPress dashboard and then click on the ‘Emails’ tab.
Here, you can upload a logo by clicking the ‘Attach File’ button.
There are also options to edit the ‘from’ name and email address.
If you scroll down, then Easy Digital Downloads also gives an option to enable WP Mail SMTP.
It is the best SMTP plugin for WordPress that helps email deliverability and prevents your emails from landing in the spam folder or not reaching the customer’s inbox.
When you are done, simply click the ‘Save Changes’ button.
Next, you can switch to the ‘Purchase Receipts’ tab.
Here, you can edit the purchase email subject, heading, and the text of the email.
Don’t forget to save your changes when you are done.
You can also send a test email to see your changes and ensure everything is working correctly. Simply click the ‘Send Test Email’ button, and EDD will send a message to your admin email address.
Step 6: Promote Your Online Font Store
Now that your digital store is ready to sell fonts, you’ll need to promote it to drive traffic and sales.
There are different ways you can start promoting your store. This can include creating a sales page where you list different fonts and adding the page to your website navigation menu. You can also display different fonts on the homepage to improve their visibility and get conversions.
Other than that, creating a WordPress blog can help drive to your website. You can write about different fonts and cover extensive topics, like when to use them or share your own experience.
Easy Digital Downloads also lets you create a purchase button, which you can add anywhere on your site. It is similar to a buy now button, where users can purchase fonts with a click of a button.
Simply head to Downloads from your WordPress dashboard and edit one of the fonts.
Next, you’ll need to scroll down to the Purchase Shortcode section.
You can now add the purchase shortcode to any page or post and allow users to buy the font.
Bonus: Use Plugins and Tools to Promote Your Digital Downloads Store
Besides that, there are lots of WordPress plugins you can use to help promote your online font store. Here are some of the top picks to help you sell digital products:
OptinMonster – It is the best conversion optimization software in the market. You can create multiple campaigns to grow your email list, convert visitors into customers, and reduce cart abandonment.
MonsterInsights – You can use this plugin to set up Google Analytics in WordPress without editing code. It helps track user behavior on your site, shows where visitors are coming from, how your site is performing, and more. You can uncover amazing insights to grow your business and make data-driven decisions.
PushEngage – It is the best push notification software for WordPress. You can use it to send personalized web push notifications and let users know about new fonts, sales, discount coupons, and more.
RafflePress – You can use RafflePress to run viral giveaways. This helps build social followers, grow your email list, build brand recognition, and promote your fonts.
Are you hitting a brick wall trying to plan upcoming content for your blog or business website?
A WordPress website is a powerful tool. But so many business owners waste their potential by not being intentional about the content they create.
The right content will attract the right visitors. It will answer their questions and provide the information they are searching for. Plus, it can help you grow a community of people who appreciate the types of products or services you provide.
So, here are my top tips on how to create an effective content plan in WordPress.
Note: This is a guest post by Chris Christoff, the Awesome Motive partner in charge of MonsterInsights, the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. This is an expert column that we publish every Thursday, where we invite a WordPress expert to share their experiences with our readers.
I will cover quite a few topics in this post. Here’s a handy list so you can jump to the section you are most interested in:
Internet users perform 5.9 million Google searches per minute. Wouldn’t it be great to know what they are looking for so you can provide the answers? That’s what keyword research is all about.
Keywords are the specific words and phrases that users type into Google and other search engines to find the content they are looking for.
You can explore the top keywords related to your blog’s niche using free and paid keyword research tools. Throughout this article, I’ll touch on how to use a number of these tools.
Let’s start with Semrush. This is one of my favorite keyword research tools because it makes it easy to discover keywords related to your WordPress blog.
You simply type in any word or phrase related to your business, and Semrush will give you a list of keyword variations, questions, and related keywords.
These will reveal topics you should plan to write about. Make sure you include these keywords in a natural way within the content of your blog posts.
Another useful tool is Google Trends, which shows you how the popularity of a keyword varies over time. This can show you whether a specific keyword is becoming more or less popular, or if it is searched for more often at certain times of the year.
This will help you spot topics that are quickly growing in importance and topics that are best written about at certain times of the year.
For example, you will want to schedule some topics for summer or winter or during certain holidays, like Christmas or Thanksgiving.
2. Which Search Terms Are Bringing Visitors to My Website?
Now you have a useful list of the relevant keywords that users are generally searching for, you should spend some time learning about the phrases people are using to find your WordPress site right now. This will be a list of search terms you are already ranking for.
One of the best tools to uncover this information is Google Search Console. It’s a free tool that lets you monitor your site’s presence in Google search results.
However, like many online tools, Google Search Console is quite technical and can be difficult for beginners to use.
That’s the problem MonsterInsights intends to solve. It connects with Google Search Console and Google Analytics to let you view easy-to-understand reports right from your WordPress dashboard.
For example, MonsterInsights offers a Search Console report that lists the top 50 Google search terms that bring visitors to your site.
This data shows you which topics your current visitors are interested in. Since you are already getting traffic on those keywords, you can improve your search performance by creating new content on those topics.
Next, I recommend asking yourself whether your WordPress blog posts are ranking for the right keywords. If you have already written content that targets specific keywords but are not getting much traffic for them, then you will need to concentrate on creating better content.
3. Who Is Visiting My Website?
I always suggest that business owners plan their content around their target audience. This is the group of people you want to reach with your products and services.
They are likely to have similar demographics, needs, and interests, and understanding what they are will help you write more engaging content.
The best tool for understanding your website visitors is Google Analytics. It’s a free tool that collects all sorts of information about your website visitors, including the country they live in, the operating system and browser they use, and even their screen resolution.
You can view this information right from your WordPress dashboard using the MonsterInsights Demographics report. It displays visitor information from Google Analytics in a friendly and helpful way.
You can see your visitors’ ages and genders at a glance. This information will help you plan more compelling content.
For example, you will probably want to write with a different style and voice for young female visitors compared to a website that attracts mainly middle-aged men.
This report also lists your visitors’ interests, revealing the topics your target audience is most interested in. This data is also very helpful when planning content.
You may be surprised by this demographic data because you are trying to target a completely different audience. In that case, something has gone wrong with your content, and you should keep these insights in mind when planning new content and updates.
4. What Is Working on My Site?
Another important consideration when creating an effective content plan is looking at the website content that is already working well. These are the posts that are receiving the most traffic and that your visitors spend the most time on.
For example, it’s always a good idea to look for your most important pages and posts.
Once you know which posts are performing the best, you can plan to create more content on similar topics and grow your traffic.
I also recommend checking keyword rankings for your top articles. You may be able to improve their rankings by scheduling updates and optimizations.
You can uncover more detailed insights by installing the MonsterInsights Custom Dimensions addon. This will let you create reports of your most popular authors, top categories, top focus keywords, and most popular post types.
In turn, this information will help you build a data-driven content strategy that works.
For example, if one author’s posts are performing well, then you can train the rest of your team to follow their techniques. Or discovering your top categories will show you popular topics on your website that you should plan more content for.
5. What Is Declining in Traffic on My Site?
Content planning isn’t just about deciding on new articles to write. It’s also about regularly updating existing content to stay relevant and accurate.
Content decay is where your posts decline in traffic and search rankings over time. They will continue to lose traffic unless you update that content.
This can happen when your content becomes old or outdated, or your competitors write better content targeting the same keywords. It may also be that those keywords are no longer being searched for as often, or that Google has changed their algorithm.
In my opinion, content decay is one of the biggest problems faced by website owners and online businesses.
That’s why it’s a good idea to monitor how individual posts are ranking using a WordPress SEO plugin. All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is one of the best options, and it helps you easily optimize your website for search engines.
It has a Content Performance report that displays your best-performing posts and pages and shows whether their search engine rankings are rising or falling.
You can quickly see which posts have lost the most rankings in the ‘Top Losing’ tab.
AIOSEO also offers a more detailed Content Rankings report. This displays the date you last updated all of your website content, the change in ranking, and a helpful graph of how each post has performed over the last year.
Once you identify the posts on your website that are declining, you can schedule updates so they will start to rank well again.
You should update any information that has changed since the post was written and optimize it for SEO. For example, you might update the images, embed a video, or add a table of contents or FAQ section.
6. What Is Missing From My Site?
Your WordPress blog is a work in progress. That means there will be lots of topics that users are searching for that you haven’t written about yet.
One of the best things you can do when planning new content is to perform a content gap analysis. This process involves comparing the keywords your audience is looking for against your website content and planning to write new posts to fill the gaps you haven’t covered yet.
I showed you earlier how Semrush can help you discover important keywords that you should cover in your articles.
It also offers a Keyword Gap report that can automatically show you which keywords are missing from your website or not performing well.
You simply enter the URLs of your top competitors to discover the keywords they are ranking for but you are not.
Then, you can easily filter the list to find keywords that are missing or weak on your blog.
Once you identify which topics are missing, you can plan to create helpful content to fill those gaps and improve your website’s search performance.
Now, I want to show you some other ways you can get content ideas from your competitors.
7. What Are My Competitors Doing Well?
I’ve been working in the content marketing space for a long time, and it’s more competitive than ever. You can only stay ahead of the game if you keep your eye on what others are doing in your industry.
Chances are, some of your competitors’ content is outperforming yours. Performing a competitor analysis lets you study what they are doing well so you can improve your own website and ultimately outrank them on search.
You’ve just seen how the Semrush Keyword Gap report shows you the keywords your competitors outrank you on. You can also use their Domain Overview report to discover a more complete analysis of competing websites.
Once you enter your competitor’s URL, you’ll be able to see its authority score, organic search traffic, paid search traffic, backlinks, and a whole lot more.
You’ll also see the countries that provide the most traffic and a graph of their traffic over time.
Besides that, you can discover their top-performing pages and tons of other useful data that you can use to improve your content strategy.
I appreciate how Semrush lets you dig in and explore each aspect of the report to give you fresh insights into your competitor’s SEO strategies.
Now, you can use that information to set goals for your website and identify areas for improvement.
8. Use AI Tools to Discover More Content Ideas
Marketers who use AI (artificial intelligence) see an average of 70% increase in ROI (return on investment). When brainstorming new content ideas, artificial intelligence tools can help by identifying relevant trends, topics, and keywords.
This can spark new content ideas and help you stay on top of current industry discussions.
With practice, you’ll start using longer and more precise prompts to get the exact help you are looking for. Here are a few of my own examples that you can use when creating a content plan.
This prompt simply asks for 10 blog post ideas on certain topics, along with a title for each post:
Create a list of at least 10 blog post ideas on the topics of stress management and mental health. Suggest an SEO-friendly title for each post, and use an emotional and persuasive tone in post titles.
Below, you can see the ideas that ChatGPT gave me in response:
If you are planning to write product reviews, then you can ask the AI for the most popular products used in a particular area, and a brief explanation of how they can help, like this:
Create a list of the most popular equipment needed in a home office, along with the pros and cons of each one.
In the same way, you might ask for a list of problems people typically have when trying to accomplish a particular task:
Create a list of problems people typically experience when performing a content gap analysis. Provide three tips on how to overcome each problem.
Specific questions like this will provide a more helpful list of suggestions than generic prompts.
Once you have generated a list of new content ideas, artificial intelligence can help you write powerful headlines for each post. For example, I recommend starting by using a free headline analyzer tool on websites like WPBeginner and MonsterInsights.
After that, you can use tools such as All in One SEO to optimize your headlines. With the click of your mouse, you will be offered 5 optimized post titles that are designed to capture your audience’s interest using up-to-date best practices.
9. Schedule Your Content Plan on a Content Calendar
If you followed all my tips above, then you should now have a very long list of ideas. This will include new blog post topics, optimized titles and keywords, and articles that need to be updated.
It’s now time to make a plan. The problem is that a large list of keywords can overwhelm beginners, so they simply give up.
You can make sure those posts actually get written or updated by scheduling them on your content calendar. This will act like a roadmap, giving you a clear overview of your content strategy and keeping you on track.
You can use popular online task management tools like Asana or Trello. You may already be familiar with these web apps, and they come with powerful features that help you stay on track.
Additionally, if you have a multi-author blog, then solutions like PublishPress Pro can improve your editorial workflow. This WordPress plugin lets you create a content calendar with custom post statuses, editorial comments, and email notifications.
Just make sure that your publishing schedule is consistent and achievable. Your goal is to create a bird’s eye view of your content strategy that keeps you organized and productive.
Are you debating whether to use Google Analytics or Jetpack Stats for your WordPress website?
Both are popular analytics platforms, but you might be wondering which one is the better fit for you. Especially with changes to the Jetpack Stats pricing model, you may be asking yourself whether switching to Google Analytics is worth it.
Here at WPBeginner, we’ve used and recommended a variety of analytics tools to help countless users find the perfect option for their needs.
In this article, we will break down the key differences between Google Analytics and Jetpack Stats so you can make an informed decision and pick the best software for your website.
Why Trust WPBeginner?
The WPBeginner editorial team has over 16 years of experience in WordPress, digital marketing, analytics, and web development. We’ve tried and tested various plugins, themes, and software on our own projects to help users find the best solutions.
Ever wondered where your website visitors come from, what pages they visit, and what they click on? This is where website analytics come in. These tools help you understand your audience and their behavior so that you can make data-driven decisions to improve your website.
Google Analytics is one of the most powerful analytics platforms available. It’s a free tool by Google that allows you to examine your website’s traffic in depth.
On the other hand, Jetpack Stats is an analytics tool that comes bundled with the popular Jetpack plugin from Automattic, the folks behind WordPress.com.
Like Google Analytics, It provides an overview of your website traffic, like how many visitors you have and which pages are most popular.
Both Google Analytics and Jetpack Stats are free to use (though the second has paid plans). This makes them popular choices for website owners looking to track their WordPress site stats without breaking the bank.
Why Are WordPress Users Leaving Jetpack Stats?
Jetpack Stats used to be a popular choice, but some pricing changes have left users frustrated.
Many users are now classified as ‘commercial’ and require paid plans to access features they previously had for free, even if their website is non-profit or they only make a few dollars a month. This can be prohibitively expensive for very small businesses or people who are simply fundraising through their websites.
This pricing change has led many people to explore alternatives, including Google Analytics.
While Google Analytics is powerful, it’s not built specifically for WordPress. Fortunately, to connect it with WordPress, you can use beginner-friendly plugins like MonsterInsights.
Now that you know why users are migrating away from Jetpack Stats, let’s review the key features of both Google Analytics and Jetpack Stats. You can use the quick links below to navigate through this article:
Ease of use refers to how user-friendly a platform is, including how easy it is to set up and navigate. Let’s compare how Google Analytics and Jetpack Stats stack up in terms of user experience for WordPress users.
Jetpack Stats: Simple Yet Easy to Use
Our first impression of Jetpack Stats is it’s a breeze to set up. You can just install the WordPress plugin like any other and connect it to your WordPress.com account to get started.
The interface is simple and uses clear language. Right in the WordPress dashboard, you’ll see your key stats like visitor traffic, views, comments, likes, referrer traffic, and visitor location.
It also displays the percentage change compared to the previous period, making it easy to see trends.
Switching between daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly views is also easy for analyzing your overall performance.
For bloggers, you can switch to the ‘Insights’ tab for specific data like peak traffic times, most popular tags and categories, and top commenters.
Google Analytics: Slightly Higher Learning Curve
Setting up Google Analytics itself is quite straightforward, as you only need to answer a few questions on their website.
However, some users may find it tricky to configure it with WordPress as some code is involved. Thankfully, plugins like MonsterInsights simplify the process. When we tried it, all we needed to do was install the plugin and connect it to an existing Google Analytics account.
While the Google Analytics platform is powerful, its interface can be overwhelming for beginners due to the sheer number of buttons and settings. Fortunately, there’s a built-in tour in the Google Analytics dashboard to help newcomers navigate the platform.
MonsterInsights also helps bridge this gap by displaying essential Google Analytics reports right within your WordPress dashboard.
For example, the Reports tab offers a well-organized layout of your data, showing new vs. returning visitors, device breakdowns, top traffic sources, top-performing posts/pages, and more. You can also customize the date range to get an overall view of your performance.
MonsterInsights also keeps things organized with clear tabs. Each tab focuses on a specific area of your website’s performance, like traffic, eCommerce (if you have an online store), search console data, form submissions, site speed, and more.
This makes it easy to find the data you’re looking for without getting overwhelmed. Plus, the language used in the reports is straightforward and easy to understand, even for beginners.
Winner: Jetpack Stats
For its straightforward setup and user-friendly interface, Jetpack Stats wins this round for ease of use. It’s ideal for beginners who want to quickly access essential website analytics without getting bogged down by technical details.
While Google Analytics has a steeper learning curve, once you master it, navigating and extracting insights becomes easier. Plus, using a plugin like MonsterInsights simplifies the entire process and lets you see all your data directly in WordPress.
Web Analytics Features – Google Analytics vs. Jetpack Stats
When choosing an analytics platform, it’s very important to consider how much data you will need to understand your website’s performance effectively. The more insights you have, the better you can tailor your content and improve your overall website experience.
Jetpack Stats: More Focused on Blogs
Jetpack Stats’ feature richness depends on the plan you choose. The free version offers real-time visitor data (updated every 30 minutes), basic stats and trends for posts and pages, and GDPR compliance. These features might be enough if you primarily run a blog.
Here’s a breakdown of the metrics you can see in the free version:
Traffic overview – 7-day highlights of visitor traffic, page views, likes, and comments with trend comparisons.
Referrals – Websites sending visitors to your site.
Visitor location – Which countries your users come from.
Engagement – Top-clicked external links and email stats.
Content performance – Insights into your posting activity, including most popular posting time, yearly activity overview, and top viewed tags and categories.
While the free plan might be suitable for basic blog analysis, we found it lacked the depth needed for website optimization. Upgrading to a paid plan only unlocks early access to features and UTM tracking, which is necessary if you run targeted marketing campaigns.
Google Analytics: A Powerhouse of Site Stats
Due to its vast data collection, Google Analytics is a widely used platform across many industries. Similar to Jetpack Stats, it provides data on traffic, users, referrers, countries, and devices.
That said, we found Google Analytics stats to have much more detailed information, such as:
Site traffic sources – You can see traffic acquisition channels between organic search, paid search, referrals, and social media traffic.
Engagement analysis– View the average engagement time for each page to determine visitor interest.
SEO integration – Connect with Google Search Console to analyze clicks, impressions, and organic search landing page performance for specific keywords.
Conversions – Define key events using Google Tag Manager to track user actions like button clicks, contact form submissions, downloads, or purchases.
Audience demographics – Gain deeper insights by analyzing user demographics like age, region, and city.
Actionable insights – Use the ‘Insights & recommendations’ feature for easy-to-understand suggestions on improving your website.
Visual reporting – Use the ‘Explorations’ feature to create visual reports based on your data.
MonsterInsights takes Google Analytics a step further. This plugin allows you to access even more features like user journey visualization, displaying your top posts on your website based on data, and site notes to give context to important data points.
Winner: Google Analytics
The sheer scope of Google Analytics data and features make it the clear winner. You can delve deeper into user behavior, track conversions, gain valuable SEO insights, and create customized reports for your website’s performance.
While Google Analytics might appear intimidating, MonsterInsights simplifies the experience with its user-friendly dashboard reports.
Data Accuracy – Google Analytics vs. Jetpack Stats
When your analytics tools provide accurate information, you can make informed decisions about your website’s content, marketing strategies, and overall user experience.
On the other hand, inaccurate data can lead you down the wrong path, causing you to invest time and resources in ineffective approaches.
Jetpack Stats: Generally Accurate, But Limited Filtering
Jetpack Stats gets data by placing a tracking script on your WordPress website. This script monitors visitor activity and sends the information back to Jetpack for processing.
When it comes to bot traffic, we couldn’t find a lot of information on how Jetpack Stats automatically excludes it in your reports. That said, it is possible to manually mark a referrer as spam so that it doesn’t show up in your site stats.
Another thing you should know is that Jetpack Stats has said that the total visitors count and the specific referrer numbers may be missing from their reports because of rising privacy laws.
So, if your site’s traffic stats look like they are coming from direct sources, they may actually be from other referrers. Simply put, the data you see might not be totally accurate.
Google Analytics: More Powerful Accuracy Measures
Google Analytics uses a more advanced tracking system that collects detailed and accurate data on visitor behavior.
From our research, here are some methods Google uses to ensure data accuracy:
IP filtering – Users can define specific IP addresses or address ranges to be excluded from tracking. This is useful for filtering out internal traffic from your office or development team.
Bot filtering – While not perfect, Google has advanced algorithms to identify and exclude bot traffic from your analytics reports.
Data sampling – For very high-traffic websites, Google Analytics may use data sampling to provide reports with an acceptable level of accuracy while reducing processing time.
Also, Google, as a search engine giant, has access to a vast amount of data on user behavior across the Internet. This data allows them to improve their algorithms and provide more accurate analytics data for website owners.
That said, rising concerns about data privacy have led some website owners to hesitate about using Google Analytics. However, we’ve found a workaround for using Google Analytics while complying with GDPR laws.
With MonsterInsights, you can use the Privacy Guard feature to keep personally identifiable information out of Google Analytics. Plus, there is an EU Compliance addon that can anonymize visitor IP addresses and integrate with cookie compliance plugins.
Winner: Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the winner for data accuracy. Their comprehensive tracking system provides a more reliable picture of your website traffic.
While Jetpack Stats offers real-time updates, the lack of clear measures to address bot traffic out of the box can skew your data.
eCommerce Tracking – Google Analytics vs. Jetpack Stats
eCommerce tracking lets you monitor the performance of your online store. By understanding customer behavior within your shop, you can identify areas for improvement and optimize your sales strategy.
Let’s see how Jetpack Stats and Google Analytics stack up in terms of eCommerce tracking.
Jetpack Stats: Limited Insights for WooCommerce Stores
If you have a WooCommerce shop, Jetpack Stats integrates with it to some extent. However, it has limitations.
For one, your shop’s landing page stats get bundled with ‘Home page/Archives’ data since the shop page is technically an archive of your products. This makes it difficult to see the difference between shop-specific traffic and sales from your overall website traffic.
Technically, Jetpack adds a ‘Store’ tab to the dashboard if it sees WooCommerce installed on your website. We were actually excited to check it out, as we expected to see some more data about our demo store.
However, this tab simply redirects you to the WooCommerce plugin’s Analytics Overview tab, which displays data like total sales, net sales, orders, average order value, and product information.
These details are handy, but it’s not true eCommerce tracking provided by Jetpack Stats itself.
Google Analytics: In-Depth Tracking and Insights
As we mentioned earlier, Google Analytics allows you to define key events, including purchases, as conversions. This lets you see in-depth analysis of your eCommerce performance within dedicated reports.
You can see not only purchase data but also track product views, cart additions, and abandoned cart rates, helping you identify areas for improvement in your sales funnel and reduce cart abandonment.
Google Analytics also provides valuable customer insights like customer lifetime value, which helps you understand the total revenue a customer generates over their relationship with your store.
MonsterInsights Pro unlocks even more eCommerce data. When you open the eCommerce report, you can see top conversion sources, add-to-cart rates, product removal rates from carts, and abandoned checkout percentages.
All of this data is helpful for optimizing your website for maximum sales.
Winner: Google Analytics
Google Analytics’ ability to track key events, analyze customer journeys within the sales funnel, and provide valuable customer lifetime value data makes it a powerful tool for online store owners.
While Jetpack Stats offers a basic WooCommerce integration, it doesn’t have as much information as Google Analytics.
Support – Google Analytics vs. Jetpack Stats
You will likely have questions or issues while using your analytics platform. Having access to reliable and timely WordPress support can help you resolve any problems quickly.
Jetpack Stats: Documentation and Paid Priority Support
Jetpack Stats offers two primary support channels: documentation and support request submission. Their documentation is generally well-organized and helpful, with screenshots to guide you in the right direction.
Upgrading to a paid plan grants you priority support. This means your questions are handled before those submitted by free plan users. However, even with paid plans, support remains limited to submitting a request form.
We couldn’t find any direct channels like live chat or phone support.
Google Analytics: Extensive Resources and Community Support
Google Analytics offers a different support approach: comprehensive documentation and a large, active community.
Google Analytics has detailed documentation covering a wide range of topics. However, the sheer volume of information can be overwhelming, and some documentation entries may lack visuals.
The good news is that Google Analytics is a widely used platform, so there’s a vast online community with countless resources. You can go to the Google Analytics Help Community if you have any questions.
Many websites, including WPBeginner, also offer tutorials, guides, and troubleshooting tips specifically for Google Analytics. Overall, finding solutions to the most common issues is easy with a quick Google search.
If you use MonsterInsights, then you gain access to additional support options. MonsterInsights offers support tickets and a friendly AI chatbot to help you with any issues related to the plugin and Google Analytics.
Winner: Google Analytics
While both platforms offer documentation, Google Analytics wins due to their sheer volume of available resources and community support. Additionally, many Google Analytics plugins provide excellent dedicated support.
Pricing – Google Analytics vs. Jetpack Stats
When choosing an analytics tool, you will want to find one that fits your budget while offering the features you need. Let’s explore the pricing structure of Jetpack Stats and Google Analytics.
Jetpack Stats: Freemium with Tiered Pricing
Jetpack Stats offers a freemium model, meaning it has a free tier and paid plans with additional features. The free version is for non-commercial websites, but you can also name a monthly contribution.
It’s important to note that Jetpack defines ‘non-commercial’ strictly. Even non-profit organizations that ask for donations are considered commercial, so you have to read the fine print carefully.
The paid plans start at $8.33 per month, billed yearly (nearly $100 annually), and will increase based on your monthly traffic volume. Here’s a breakdown of their pricing tiers:
10,000 monthly views: $8.33
100,000 monthly views: $16.67
250,000 monthly views: $25
500,000 monthly views: $41.67
1 million: $58.34
2 million: $79.17
The paid plans include priority support, early access to features, and UTM tracking.
Google Analytics: Free with Premium Options
Google Analytics is a completely free tool, though a paid version called Google Analytics 360 is available for large-scale enterprises. For most website owners, the free version offers more than enough features.
When it comes to plugins that connect your website with Google Analytics, some are free, freemium, or paid. Site Kit by Google is a popular free option, though the data you can view from WordPress is a bit basic.
MonsterInsights has a free version but also offers paid plans starting at $99.60 per year for a single website. These subscriptions provide additional features and insights on top of the free Google Analytics data.
Winner: Google Analytics
Considering the free version and the wider range of freemium plugins available, Google Analytics is again the winner in this round.
The free version offers significant value for most website owners, and paid plugin options like MonsterInsights offer more value than Jetpack Stats.
Google Analytics vs. Jetpack Stats: Which Is Best?
Google Analytics is best for professional bloggers, businesses of all sizes, and anyone who wants to gain deep insights into their website traffic. It provides the most comprehensive data collection and analysis features.
Plus, MonsterInsights is a beginner-friendly plugin that lets you see your Google Analytics data through user-friendly dashboards, simplified information, and useful add-ons.
On the other hand, Jetpack Stats may be suitable for bloggers with basic needs. If you primarily run a blog and don’t require complex data analysis, then Jetpack Stats’ traffic updates, basic post and page stats, and SEO insights could be enough.
Also, if you are already using Jetpack for other features like security, the built-in Jetpack Stats might be a convenient option to get basic WordPress blog analytics without needing another tool.
Since both platforms are free, we encourage you to give them a try and see which one is most suitable for your website.
Are you struggling with WordPress local SEO and getting your site noticed in local searches?
SEO can be tricky, and local SEO has its own set of challenges. But here’s the good news: we’ve been helping small business owners win at SEO for years. We know what it takes to rank in the search results and get more traffic to your website.
Local SEO is more than just using the right keywords. It’s about attracting potential customers who live right around the corner.
In this article, we will show you the ultimate WordPress local SEO guide to get your website noticed by your local customers.
For example, if you run a pizza place in your area, then local SEO can make your business appear at the top of relevant search engine results pages (SERPs).
Search engines use algorithms to understand a user’s location and offer relevant local search results. They look at the person’s IP address, the search query, and business listings to associate businesses with specific locations.
With this information, search engines can then show results that are most relevant to the person’s location and needs.
Optimizing your online presence for local searches can help you drive more organic traffic and attract potential customers in your area. This is why local SEO is an important digital marketing strategy for small businesses.
What Are Local SEO Ranking Factors?
Local SEO ranking factors are what search engines look at when they are deciding which local businesses should appear at the top of search results.
Here are some key factors that influence local rankings:
Google Business listing – This free Google tool allows businesses to manage their online presence across Search and Maps. Having your company listed here will make it easier for users to find you.
Reviews – Comments from customers are like social proof. They can influence local search rankings because they show potential buyers that other people have had a good experience with your business.
NAP consistency – Short for Name, Address, and Phone number, it’s important that these details are consistent across all your online platforms to avoid confusion.
Proximity to the searcher – This refers to how close your business is to the person doing the search. Search engines often rank businesses closer to the searcher.
Other standard search ranking factors, such as website performance, high-quality content, and user experience, can also affect where your web pages rank on search engine results pages.
Now, let’s look at some of the best WordPress SEO practices to rank for local searches. You can use the quick links below to navigate through our tutorial:
A Google Business Profile, also known as Google My Business, is a free and powerful tool that can help your business appear in local organic searches.
It acts like a digital storefront that appears on Google Maps and Search results when people look for businesses like yours in their area.
Here’s an example:
By claiming and optimizing your Google Business Profile, you can provide potential customers with key information about your business, like your address, phone number, WordPress website, and opening hours.
To create a Google Business profile, head over to https://www.google.com/business/ and click ‘Manage now.’ Then, sign in with your Google account.
Once signed in, you can start by entering your business name. Google will then search for existing listings.
If yours doesn’t appear, then you can select ‘Create a business with this name’ to continue.
The next step is to choose one of these business types: online retail, local store, or service business. The onboarding steps for each business type may look a bit different from one another.
Once you have made your choice, click ‘Next’.
If you picked ‘online retail’ in the previous step, then you will now enter the web address of your online store.
You can skip this step if you have not made an eCommerce site yet.
Now, it’s time to choose a business category. Simply type in what type of product or service you offer in the field, and some options will start appearing.
Then, click ‘Next’.
At this stage, you can enter your business address.
To complete this step, fill out your country/region, street address, city, state/province, and zip code. Then, hit the ‘Next’ button.
Based on the address you enter, Google may suggest some business listings that are already in their directory but have yet to be claimed.
If you don’t see any listings related to your business, select ‘None of these’ and continue to the next step.
Now, a map will appear. Here, you will have to drag the pin onto your business location. This will help users find your business with Google Maps.
Once done, click ‘Next.’
The next step is to enter your contact phone number.
If you don’t have one yet, then just skip this step. You can also read our expert pick of the best business phone services if you need some recommendations.
You have now successfully created a business listing on Google.
To go ahead with updating your business details, click ‘Continue’ on the screen below.
First, you must verify that you actually own and manage the business. Google automatically determines the verification method based on the business information you’ve provided so far.
If you want to verify your business at another time, just click ‘Verify Later.’
Now, depending on your business type and category, you will have to enter additional information in the next onboarding steps.
For example, if you run a restaurant, then you will have to specify your business hours and dining modes and add photos of your establishment.
Once you have completed all that information, you will see an option to claim a $500 Google Ads credit. With this, you can advertise your business so that it appears at the very top of local searches (above organic search results).
You will also see an option to sign up for Google Workspace, which is a software kit that includes professional Google Mail, Drive, Calendar, and other Google products.
And that’s it. If you decide to verify your business right away, then Google will review your business profile integrity within 7 days of your verification. After that, your business listing will be visible on Google.
Pro Tip: Besides Google Maps, Apple Maps is another popular mapping platform people use to find local businesses. Our guide on how to optimize your site’s SEO for DuckDuckGo includes a handy tutorial on how to add your business to Apple Maps.
2. Install a WordPress SEO Plugin With Local SEO Features
Having a Google Business Profile is a great first step, but it’s not the only tool in your local SEO toolbox. A WordPress plugin with local SEO features can also help your website rank better in Google search results.
While Google My Business focuses on your business listing, SEO tools and plugins can help optimize your website content for local searches.
Many plugins offer features specifically designed to improve your local ranking, like adding schema markup to your website. Also called structured data, schema markup gives search engines more information about your business in a clear and organized way.
By adding schema markup, you are not just helping search engines crawl, index, and rank your website. You are also making the information about your business in search results clearer and more interesting.
This can make your website stand out more in search results, which can improve your website’s click-through rates.
Here’s an example of a snippet you may find when looking for ‘Joe’s pizza NYC’:
There are many SEO plugins for WordPress websites, but our favorite is All in One SEO (AIOSEO).
This WordPress plugin makes it easy to set up your local business schema without using code.
For more information about using AIOSEO’s local SEO features, you can read our guides below:
This doesn’t mean that adding Google Maps to your website will suddenly put your site at the top of search results. But it can increase your chances significantly in a few ways:
Local SEO signals – Embedding a Google Map on your website strengthens local SEO signals to search engines. It tells search engines your business has a physical location, which is crucial for local searches.
User experience – Having a map on your website improves the user experience by allowing people to easily see your location and plan their visit. This can keep visitors engaged on your site for longer.
Social proof – Google Maps reviews can serve as social proof, showing potential customers that others have had positive experiences with your business. This can increase trust and encourage more people to visit your website.
Alternatively, you can check out our guide on how to embed a Google Map in a contact form. This tutorial can be useful if you want to include the map in your contact information page.
Before you jump into creating content, it’s essential to understand what people in your area are actually searching for online. Local keyword research is an important SEO strategy that can help you achieve this.
Unlike regular keyword research that focuses on global search terms, local SEO targets specific keywords with a local focus, like ‘best pizza near me’ or ‘pizza delivery [your city].’
To get started with local keyword research, you don’t need to be an expert. There are many keyword research tools available, like WPBeginner’s Keyword Generator Tool.
All you need to do is enter a keyword, like your business category and your location. After that, the tool will come up with keyword ideas that you can include in your content later. Here’s an example using ‘pet sitters Seattle’:
We see that the tool has suggested ‘best pet sitters Seattle.’ You can use this keyword when you create the copy for your homepage or other pages so that they show up for those search terms.
You can also include details like pet sitting rates or certification because, based on the keyword ideas, people are interested in this information.
If you want to use a more advanced tool, then check out Semrush. This tool helps you discover relevant keywords and their search volume and shows you their ranking difficulty based on location.
Here’s an example when you type ‘pet sitters’ into Semrush and limit the location to Seattle, WA:
You can see that Semrush gives you information about how easy it is to rank for the keyword in its ‘Keyword Difficulty’ section.
If you scroll down, then you will also see keyword ideas that you can use in your website content.
For example, you can use ‘trusted pet sitters’ or ‘in-home pet sitters’ to make your website appear on those local search queries if that’s what your target audience uses.
Just read these guides for more detailed information:
Creating website content for local search means writing articles specifically for your local audience. This goes beyond just mentioning your location on every web page of your WordPress blog.
Imagine you run a pet store. In addition to listing your products on your website, you could create a blog post on ‘Top Dog Parks in [Your City]’ or ‘Common Dog Walking Mistakes in [Your City].’
This type of content positions you as a helpful resource for locals and strengthens your connection with the community.
There are many benefits to creating local content. First, it attracts potential customers who are already searching for related topics. Second, it lets you showcase your expertise and build trust with your target audience.
You can then optimize these blog posts using on-page SEO techniques like including relevant keywords in your title tags, meta descriptions, and image alt text.
This increases your chances of ranking higher in local search results when people search for those keywords.
If you use AIOSEO, then you can use the TruSEO On-Page Analysis to see whether you have used enough relevant keywords in your content, title tags, and meta descriptions for your page to rank for your target keywords.
You can also use the Headline Analyzer to see if your article’s headline is enticing enough for people to click and read the content.
Here’s an example:
If you want to learn more about content optimization, then you can read these articles below:
6. List Your Business in Local Business Directories
Listing your company in local business directories is a very important step for local SEO. It involves registering your business with various platforms that are recognized in your local area, making it more visible online.
This visibility can lead to increased traffic to your website, higher engagement, and ultimately, more leads and sales.
Doing this can also improve your search engine rankings for local searches.
This is because directories often provide a link to your website, which acts as a form of link-building. Search engines view high-quality backlinks from relevant websites as a sign of trustworthiness.
There are general directories like Yelp and Google Business that every business should be on. That said, you should also consider your local industry associations or review platforms because they can put you in front of potential customers in your area.
Additionally, local newspapers and websites sometimes feature establishments in articles like ‘Best [Your Industry] in [Your City]’ or guides to your area. Try contacting them to see if they’d be interested in writing about your business.
If you are curious to see if there are any sites that already link to your business website, then you can use a backlink checker tool to do that.
Also, ensure that your business’s name, address, and phone number are the same across your website and all of the other directories you list in. Inconsistencies can confuse search engines and customers, potentially leading to a loss of trust and visibility.
For instance, if your business name is ‘Baker’s Delight’ on your website but ‘Bakers Delight Bakery’ on your Google Business Profile, then search engines might not recognize them as the same entity.
7. Get Customers to Leave Online Reviews
Besides getting listed on local directories or review sites, you should also encourage your customers to leave online reviews on those platforms.
Customer reviews are digital word-of-mouth recommendations. They can improve your local SEO by increasing the number of mentions of your business online. This way, search engines and other potential customers see your company as trustworthy.
At the very least, you should get customers to rate and review your business on Google. When people search for things like ‘best cafe in Seattle,’ Google often shows businesses with high review ratings in the local results.
Reviews on Yelp, Trustpilot, TripAdvisor, and other sites are valuable, too. These platforms attract people who are really interested in your industry, so your business gets seen by potential customers who are a good fit.
Social media reviews on Facebook, TikTok, or Instagram can also help your local SEO as people often look there for recommendations.
Once you have collected some customer reviews, we recommend displaying them on your website with the Smash Balloon Reviews Feed plugin.
This way, people who find your site through search will see great feedback from others, making your business seem more reliable and trustworthy.
You can check out these guides on displaying customer reviews for more information:
Even with strong local SEO, a user-friendly website is key to converting visitors into customers. Here are some ways to improve your website’s experience:
Clear and easy navigation –Make it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for. A clear navigation menu with simple categories and relevant internal links helps people navigate your site quickly.
Mobile-friendly design–Most people search on their phones, so you need to ensure your website looks good and functions well on all desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.
Fast loading speeds – Nobody likes a slow website. Best practices like optimizing your images and code can significantly boost your WordPress site’s performance.
Relevant and up-to-date content – Keep your website content fresh and informative. Include valuable information about your services, pricing, and frequently asked questions (FAQs).
Strong calls to action – Tell visitors what you want them to do on your website. Clear call-to-action buttons like ‘Book Now’ or ‘Contact Us’ can boost conversions.
Technical SEO– At the very least, your website needs to have an SEO-friendly URL structure, an XML sitemap, an SSL certificate, and a proper canonical URL in its header to avoid duplicate content issues.
9. Track Your Website Performance Regularly
Just like any marketing strategy, local SEO needs progress monitoring. Tracking key website metrics helps you see how your SEO efforts are performing and identify areas for improvement.
Here are a few key metrics to track for local SEO:
Website traffic– See how many people are visiting your website and how much is coming from organic search.
Local search rankings– Monitor your rankings for relevant keywords in local searches. Tools like Google Search Console can show you where you appear in local search results.
Conversion rates– Track how many visitors take desired actions on your website, like contacting you or booking an appointment. This helps you measure the effectiveness of your website in converting visitors into customers.
User engagement– Track how visitors interact with your website. Look at metrics like bounce rate (how many people leave right away) and average time spent on site. Low engagement suggests your website content is not informative enough.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool for tracking these metrics. However, its reports are very detailed and can get confusing.
If you want to use Google Analytics for WordPress sites, then we recommend installing MonsterInsights.
This analytics plugin can integrate Google Analytics with WordPress, making it easier to monitor your website’s performance directly from your dashboard.
For example, you can track how many visitors come from Google Search, how they interact with your site, and which pages they visit most.
Furthermore, if you connect Google Analytics with Google Search Console, then you can check out the Search Console report to see your top 50 search terms right in WordPress.
This way, you won’t have to switch between platforms to check your SEO analytics.
For more information on SEO analytics, check out these guides:
Now that we have covered some local SEO best practices, let’s answer a few frequently asked questions about the topic:
How long does local SEO take to work?
Local SEO can start showing results within a few weeks to a few months, depending on factors like the competitiveness of your local market and the quality of your SEO efforts.
Local SEO is beneficial for businesses that operate in a specific geographic area, such as restaurants, plumbers, or local retailers. It’s also suitable for businesses that want to attract customers from a certain region.
Which is better: local SEO or paid search?
Local SEO is cost-effective and builds a long-term online presence, while paid search ads can provide immediate visibility and targeted results. Ideally, it’s best to use both for a strong online presence.
Does blogginghelp local SEO?
Yes, blogging about relevant local content can improve your website’s rankings and establish you as an expert in your industry.
Is local SEO still relevant?
Absolutely. More and more people search online before buying locally to make informed decisions and choose the best business for their needs. Local SEO helps people find you by making your online presence more visible to your target audience.
We hope this article helped you learn about WordPress local SEO tips and tricks you can use to boost rankings. You may also be interested in our ultimate WooCommerce SEO guide and our expert pick of the best WordPress hosting providers to host your business website.
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.
Are you looking to create an online thrift store website?
Many people think that to start an eCommerce business, they’ll need to create a new product. However, there’s another way. You can find pre-owned items and sell them online through a thrift store.
In this article, we will show you how to start an online thrift store using WordPress.
What is an Online Thrift Store?
A thrift store is a type of eCommerce business where you can sell used or pre-loved products. It can be anything ranging from clothes to automobiles, electronic items, toys, books, furniture, and more at bargain prices.
One of the benefits of starting an online thrift store is its low startup cost. You don’t need a lot of money to buy and maintain an inventory. Plus, the cost of building an eCommerce site is also low.
For example, if you have an expensive dress that doesn’t fit you anymore. Instead of throwing it away, you can have it cleaned and sell it online.
Besides that, it is a great side hustle to make money online. You can start small and slowly expand your business.
What Do You Need to Start an Online Thrift Store?
When it comes to starting an online store, many people think it is too complicated. However, it’s a lot simpler than you might think.
There are 3 main things you’ll need to get started:
Domain Name – This is the name of your thrift store that people will enter in their web browser (like wpbeginner.com). Think of it as an address to your home.
Web Hosting Service – It’s where your website lives on the internet and where all your website files are saved. You can think of it as a house for your online thrift store.
SSL Certificate – This adds an extra layer of security to your online store, so you can easily accept online payments from customers.
It’s really that easy!
You can build an online thrift website without any technical skills, coding, or complicated setup.
We’ll show you step-by-step how to get started. Simply click the links below to jump to any section:
Choosing an eCommerce Platform for Online Thrift Store
The first and most essential step is to find the right platform for your online thrift store.
Choosing the wrong eCommerce platform can be a costly mistake for new store owners. Moving to a new service later on would mean you’ll have to re-do all the work and spend money again.
To avoid making this mistake, we’re here to help.
There are two popular eCommerce platforms that we recommend for your online thrift store: Shopify or WooCommerce (built on WordPress).
Shopify is a fully hosted eCommerce solution that lets you create an online store quickly.
However, the biggest drawback is its pricing. You’ll need to pay $25 per month, which can be quite expensive for individuals and small business owners. You also get limited payment options unless you pay extra.
This is why most users choose WordPress + WooCommerce. It is more flexible and cost-effective compared to Shopify. WooCommerce does require some setup, but it’s worth it in the long run.
For this tutorial, we will walk you through how to start an online thrift store using WooCommerce + WordPress.
Select a Web Hosting Service and Install WordPress
As we mentioned earlier, you will need a domain name, web hosting service, and SSL certificate to create an online thrift store.
If purchased separately, a domain name costs around $14.99 per year, web hosting will cost around $7.99 per year, and an SSL certificate will cost roughly $69.99 per year.
This cost can go even higher if you add extra features and addons to your hosting plan.
Thankfully, our friends at Bluehost offer an exclusive offer for WPBeginner readers. You can save up to 61% on website hosting plans and get started for as little as $1.99 per month.
Bluehost is an official WordPress and WooCommerce-recommended hosting provider. The best part, you get a free domain name and SSL certificate with each hosting plan.
Note: At WPBeginner, we believe in transparency. If you sign up with Bluehost using our referral link, then we will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you (in fact, you will save money and get a free domain).
We would get this commission for recommending just about any WordPress hosting company, but we only recommend products that we personally use and believe will add value to our readers.
If you’re looking for an alternative to Bluehost, then we suggest using SiteGround WooCommerce hosting. It is another officially recommended WordPress hosting service.
To start, simply visit the Bluehost website and click the ‘Get Started Now’ button.
Next, you’ll need to select a pricing plan.
You can get started for $1.99 per month. However, Bluehost also offers an Online Store plan costing you $6.99 per month. It comes with an exclusive store theme, store analytics, and $450 worth of eCommerce plugins included in the plan.
We’ll select the ‘Online Store’ plan for this tutorial.
Next, Bluehost will ask you to enter a name for your online thrift store.
If you don’t have a domain, then simply enter a website name under the ‘Create a new domain’ section, select a domain extension, and click the ‘Next’ button.
Make sure that the domain name relates to your business, is easy to pronounce and spell, and is memorable. You should also try to get a domain with a ‘.com’ extension.
After that, you’ll need to provide details like name, address, email, and more to create a new account.
Bluehost will also show extra features to add to your hosting plan. We don’t recommend purchasing these additional features, as you can always add them later on.
Lastly, you’ll need to enter the payment information to complete the purchase.
Once that’s done, Bluehost will open the account dashboard from where you can manage your websites.
The best part is that Bluehost offers a one-click WordPress installation. However, if you are using another hosting provider or somehow skipped the setup step, then please see our guide on how to install WordPress for more details.
For instance, in Bluehost, you can log in to your account and navigate to the ‘Websites’ tab. From here, simply click the ‘Add Site’ button in the top corner.
This will launch the WordPress setup wizard in Bluehost.
You can click the ‘Install WordPress’ option and click the ‘Continue’ button.
After that, you’ll be asked to enter a name for your online thrift store website.
Once you’ve entered a title, click the ‘Continue’ button.
Bluehost will now install WordPress and create your thrift store site.
After the installation is complete, you can go to the ‘Websites’ tab to see your new website. Go ahead and click the ‘Edit Site’ button to view the WordPress admin panel.
As an alternate, you can also log in to your WordPress dashboard by going to ‘yourthriftstore.com/wp-admin’ directly from the browser.
Here’s what the WordPress admin area will look like:
Next, you’ll need to view WordPress settings and ensure everything is set up properly.
First, you need to go to the Settings » General page and add a WordPress site title and tagline. If you’re happy with the site title, then you don’t need to change it.
A tagline acts as a small description for your thrift store. However, this is optional, and you can add it later on.
Besides that, you’ll also need to ensure that your WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL) are using HTTPS instead of HTTP.
Next, you can go to the Settings » Discussions page from the admin panel and scroll down to the ‘Before a comment appears’ section.
Here, click the ‘Comment must be manually approved’ checkbox. This way, your comments will go into moderation and help prevent spam.
Upon activation, the WooCommerce setup wizard will launch. You can click the ‘Set up my store’ button to continue.
Simply follow the onscreen instructions to complete the WooCommerce setup. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to start an online store.
Once the setup is complete, you can set up payment options on your thrift store.
WooCommerce supports some of the most popular payment gateways. You can accept credit cards, cash on delivery, bank transfers, Stripe, PayPal, and more.
Simply go to WooCommerce » Settings from your WordPress dashboard and switch to the ‘Payments’ tab.
You can click the ‘Set up’ button for the payment service you’d like to add to your online thrift store.
For example, let’s say you want to configure Stripe credit card payments. Simply connect your Stripe account or enter account keys to add the payment method to your store.
Another optional setting you can configure in WooCommerce is shipping zones. It lets you add different shipping methods and costs for various regions.
Simply head to Appearance » Themes and click the ‘Customize’ button to edit the theme.
This will launch the WordPress Full Site Editor (FSE). It was first introduced in WordPress 5.9 and uses blocks to edit the theme, just like editing content in the block editor.
The goal of the full site editor is to simplify website editing and make it user-friendly.
If you don’t like the default theme, then you can simply change it. There are thousands of WordPress themes to choose from. You can see our list of the best WooCommerce WordPress themes to pick the on you like.
On the other hand, you can create a custom theme for your online thrift store using a WordPress theme builder.
For instance, SeedProd is the best theme and landing page builder that offers a drag-and-drop interface. It comes with pre-built templates, which you can easily customize without editing code.
Once you’re done, simply click the ‘Publish’ button.
Now, you can repeat this step and add more products to your online thrift store.
You can then visit your site to see all the products listed on the store page.
Sourcing Products for Your Thrift Store
Finding products on a regular basis for your online thrift store can be a challenge for many business owners.
However, there are different places from where you can source used or pre-loved products. For instance, a quick search on other thrift stores and sites like eBay and Craigslist can help discover multiple products that you can list on your site.
Similarly, visiting flea markets, other local stores, and garage sales can also help you find the right products for your store. This is a great option if you’re selling clothes, books, and second-hand electronic items.
Another option is to allow users to upload their items for consideration on your online thrift store. This way, you’ll get to build an inventory without having to invest and simply share the revenue from the sale.
You can also create an online marketplace using WordPress where users can sell their products using your eCommerce platform. For example, people can sell their used items on your site and give you a percentage or a fee for using your site.
Add Plugins to Grow Your Traffic and Drive Sales
WordPress offers different plugins that act like apps for your website. They allow you to add extra features and functionalities and help customize your online thrift store.
For example, there are plugins for adding a contact form, product image galleries, product comparisons, gift cards, giveaways, popups, and more.
You can choose from over 59,000 free WordPress plugins. There are also premium plugins that are sold by third-party sites and developers.
That said, we’ve handpicked some essential plugins that you should install on your thrift store.
Add Extra Features and Functionality
WPForms – It is the best form plugin for WordPress that lets you add a contact form to your site. You can also create other types of forms, like a file upload form, order/billing form, online payment form, and more.
MonsterInsights – You can connect Google Analytics to your site using MonsterInsights without editing code. Using the plugin, you get insights about how users behave in your store, where they click, which products they purchase, and where they are from.
SeedProd – It’s the best drag-and-drop builder for creating custom landing pages, layouts, and website themes without any technical knowledge.
Envira Gallery – Create stunning image galleries for products on your online thrift store.
Website Optimization for SEO, Performance, and Conversions
All in One SEO (AIOSEO) – Optimize your site for search engines without technical knowledge, improve your WordPress SEO, and boost website traffic.
OptinMonster – It is the best lead generation and conversion optimization software. You can create dynamic popups, modals, floating bars, and more. It offers personalization features to grow your email list and optimize your thrift store for conversions.
PushEngage – Show push notifications on your site to connect with your visitors, bring them back to your site, and increase website traffic.
TrustPulse – Leverage the power of social proof with real-time notifications and boost eCommerce conversions.
UserFeedback – Add interactive surveys to your online store and collect user feedback. Use the data to improve user experience and satisfy customer needs.
Smash Balloon – Display social media content on your store and boost engagement.
Uncanny Automator – Automate workflows to save time and streamline work. Connect plugins, sites, and apps to automate your thrift store.
Constant Contact – It is the best email marketing service that you can use for all your email needs. Easily set up email campaigns, autoresponders, A/B testing, WooCommerce integration, and more.
WP Mail SMTP – Ensure your WordPress emails reach your customer’s inbox and don’t end up in spam. Fix email deliverability issues.
LiveChat – Offer real-time support to customers through live chat software. Answer customer queries, improve user experience, and boost sales.
At WPBeginner, our main goal is to provide helpful and beginner-friendly WordPress tutorials for non-techy users, small business owners, bloggers, and eCommerce store owners.
To help you learn more about WooCommerce and WordPress, you can follow these guides:
Do you want to run A/B split tests on your WordPress site to improve conversions?
Split testing helps you understand how small changes in content and design affect user behavior. You can create different versions of a landing page and see which one converts the best.
In this article, we will show you how to easily do A/B split testing in WordPress.
What Is A/B Split Testing?
A/B split testing is a technique that allows you to compare two versions of the same web page against each other so that you can determine which one performs better and produces the best results.
Marketers often use A/B split testing for their landing pages to find out which one gets them more conversions and sales.
Split testing can be used to test any element on the page, including call-to-action buttons, color schemes, layout changes, marketing text, images, and more.
Basically, you show different variations of a page to your audience. After that, you track user engagement and conversions to find out which variation gives you the best results.
How to Do A/B Split Testing in WordPress
Before we move forward, there are a few things you will need for this tutorial.
Previously, Google Optimize was a free tool that many people used for split testing. However, Google Optimize sunsetted on September 30, 2023. Google announced that it would be investing in A/B testing in Google Analytics 4, which is the latest version of the famous analytics platform.
This means that if you were using Google Optimize before, then you can no longer access your experiments, personalizations, and historical data. When you open your account, you will see a message at the top showing that the tool is now sunset.
Fortunately, there are some other simple ways of A/B testing in WordPress. These are great Google Optimize alternatives, as they are easier to use and help you conduct experiments in WordPress. Simply click the links below to jump ahead to your preferred method:
Method 1: A/B Testing in WordPress Using Thrive Optimize
Thrive Optimize is part of the Thrive Theme suite and lets you run experiments and split tests in WordPress.
Since Google Optimize is no longer available, Thrive Optimize is a great alternative to conduct A/B tests. It offers more features, and you don’t need to enter a code to run a split test. Plus, it will keep your experiment data safe.
Just keep in mind that you will only be able to use Thrive Optimize if you are also using the Thrive Architect page builder plugin.
First, you’ll need to visit the Thrive Themes website and sign up for an account.
After creating an account, you can download the Thrive Product Manager plugin from your account area.
Next, you’ll need to install and activate the Thrive Product Manager plugin. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
From here, you can go to the Product Manager page from your WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Log into my account’ button.
On the next screen, you’ll see different Thrive Theme products.
From here, you’ll need to install Thrive Optimize and Thrive Architect. Simply check the ‘Install Product’ options and click the ‘Install selected products’ button at the bottom.
If the products don’t automatically activate, then you will need to head back to the Product Manager page from your WordPress dashboard and activate Thrive Architect and Thrive Optimize.
You should now see a success message once the plugin is installed.
Next, you’ll need to head to Thrive Dashboard » Thrive Optimize from your WordPress admin panel.
After that, you can add a new page by going to Pages » Add New from your WordPress admin panel. Once you are in the content editor, simply click the ‘Launch Thrive Architect’ button.
Next, Thrive Architect will ask you what type of page you would like to create.
You can create a normal page, a blank page with a header and footer, a completely blank page, or select a pre-built landing page. For this tutorial, we will select the ‘Pre-built Landing Page’ option.
There are many pre-built landing page templates to choose from. Simply select one and edit your page.
In the Thrive Architect page builder, you will see an A/B testing option in the right panel.
Go ahead and click the ‘A/B’ icon.
Next, you can create different variants for your page for split testing.
We recommend clicking the ‘Duplicate this variation’ button for your control page. This will create a clone of your main page so you won’t have to create the landing page all over again from scratch.
You will now see a duplicate variant of your landing page.
Go ahead and click the ‘Edit Variation’ button to make changes.
Next, you can edit the landing page to split-test different elements.
For example, we will change the color of the call to action (CTA) button. Once you are done, just click the ‘Save Work’ button at the bottom.
Now, you can click the ‘A/B’ button from the panel on the left to go back to the A/B testing dashboard.
Next, Thrive Architect also lets you split traffic for each variation. Simply use the toggles at the bottom to allocate the amount of traffic to each page.
Once you are done, go ahead and click the ‘Set Up & Start A/B Test’ option.
A popup window will now open.
Go ahead and enter a name for your split test and a short description. You can also toggle on the ‘Enable Automatic Winner Settings’ option and set conditions to pick a clear winner, as well as the duration that Thrive Optimize will run the A/B test.
After that, simply click the ‘Next’ button.
Now, you can select a goal for your test. There are 3 options, which include revenue, visit goal page, and subscription. After picking a goal, you can click the ‘Start A/B Test’ button.
For this tutorial, we will select the ‘Subscription’ goal for our test.
Next, you’ll be redirected to the WordPress content editor. You can scroll down to the ‘Thrive Optimize – A/B Test Overview’ meta box and see the 2 variations.
You don’t have to do anything else. The plugin will now test both variations and show the winner.
To view how the variations are performing, you can click the ‘View Test Details’ option in the meta box.
Here, you can see the conversions over time for each variant and also see which is the control variant. There is also an option to stop the test and choose a winner.
Method 2: A/B Testing in WordPress Using Nelio AB Testing (Free)
If you are looking for a free solution for running A/B tests on your WordPress site, then you can use Nelio AB Testing.
While the free version isn’t as powerful as Thrive Optimize, you will get basic features to conduct experiments on your website. For example, you can test headlines, create two different versions of a page to test them, and more.
However, if you are looking for a visual builder and additional options like assigning weights to each variant in the experiment, then we recommend using the first method instead.
To start, you’ll need to install and activate the Nelio AB Testing plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you can head to Nelio A/B Testing from your WordPress dashboard. From here, click the checkbox to accept the terms of service and privacy policy of the plugin, and then click the ‘Continue’ button.
After that, you’ll be taken to the Neilo A/B Testing » Tests page in the WordPress admin panel.
Go ahead and click the ‘Add Test’ button.
Next, you’ll see options to test on your website. For example, the plugin lets you split test pages, posts, headlines, widgets, menus, themes, JavaScript, CSS, and more.
For the sake of this tutorial, we will select the ‘Headline’ option and split-test some titles for a blog post.
After that, you can enter a title for your test at the top.
From here, you will see the Control Version and Variants section. First, you can click the dropdown menu and choose a post title. This will be the control version (labeled A).
Next, you can scroll down and enter details of a variant (labeled B).
This will be the new headline you will be testing against the one that’s already live.
After that, you can scroll down to the Conversion Goals and Actions section. You will notice that the plugin will use the default goal for this experiment type. In this case, it will measure views for your page with a new headline.
However, you can define your own goals for other experiment types. For example, if you want to test a page, then you can select whether you’d like to measure page views, clicks, clicks on external links, YouTube video playback, or choose a custom event.
The plugin also lets you create segmentation and narrow your test audience. However, this feature is only available for premium users, and you’d need to subscribe to a paid plan.
After setting your conversion goals, you can click the ‘Start’ button at the top to start A/B testing.
Nelio A/B Testing plugin will now conduct the experiment.
To stop the experiment, you can go to the Nelio A/B Testing » Tests page and then click the ‘Stop’ link under the test.
You can also click the ‘View Results’ option to see which variant is performing the best.
The plugin will help you select a winner and show conversions for each variant.
Bonus Tips for Running A/B Tests in WordPress
When it comes to doing split tests on your website, here are some tips for running your experiments the right way:
Decide on a Goal – You’ll need to first decide which feature you want to test and what the end goal is. A good place to start is by studying your audience and their needs. You can also get feedback from users to understand what they are looking for and then split test elements on your site to boost conversions.
Keep Your Experiments Simple – It’s generally a good idea to just create 2 versions of your landing pages, ads, text, and other elements. This makes it easier to compare which variant is performing the best.
Document Your Split Test Results – After you’ve successfully conducted an experiment, you should document the results. This way, you’ll have valuable data for future reference and easily see what worked on your site.
Are you looking for new ways to grow your affiliate marketing revenue?
There’s a lot of money to be made! In 2023, affiliate marketing made over $17 billion globally.
But while the average salary for an affiliate marketer is over $60,000, many people earn much less while a few earn much more. What makes the difference?
Here are 7 tips that will help you grow your affiliate marketing revenue.
Note: This is a guest post by Blair Williams, the founder of Pretty Links, a popular all-in-one affiliate link management plugin. We publish an expert column on WPBeginner every other Thursday. This is an invite-only column, meaning we don’t accept unsolicited guest post offers.
I will cover quite a few topics in this post. Here’s a handy list so you can jump to the section you are most interested in:
The first step in generating revenue from affiliate sales is to make sure you attract an audience that actually wants to try out the product or service you recommend.
Since over 70% of affiliate marketers get most of their traffic from search engines like Google, that makes SEO really important.
But SEO takes time, especially if you’re competing against other affiliate marketing sites for keywords with high search volume and high competition.
To earn the most commissions, I highly recommend targeting investigational keywords. Let me explain why.
Generally speaking, Google searches are performed with 4 different types of intent, and the best match for affiliate websites is investigational intent. Here’s a quick breakdown of the different kinds of search intent:
Users with navigational intent are trying to get to a particular website. Example: search on Google with the phrase www.wpbeginner.com
Users with informational intent are simply trying to find an answer to a question. Example: search on Google with the phrase who is the current US President.
Users with transactional intent have already made a decision and are ready to purchase or download the product they chose. Example: buy Apple iPhone 15 Pro
Finally, users with investigational intent are looking for information that may eventually lead to a purchase or transaction. Example: best student laptops, compare hp vs dell laptops, etc.
Users with investigational intent will want to read product reviews, showcases, and comparisons like yours before making a final purchasing decision. This means as an affiliate marketer, it’s your job to help your users find the right product and get them purchase it through your affiliate link.
They use investigational keywords in their search queries that include words like ‘best’, ‘review’, ‘compare’, and ‘alternative’.
Here are some examples of investigational intent keywords:
By targeting investigational keywords, you will drive the right audience to your site. I’ve found that means you won’t have to get as much traffic to make a decent affiliate income.
2. Publish High-Quality Content
Now that you know the investigational keywords that will bring potential customers to your site, your next job is to create high-quality content that ranks for those keywords.
That means writing in-depth product reviews, comparisons with pros and cons, video reviews, and more. Only 28% of affiliate marketers use blogs to promote their affiliate links, and I think that number should be much higher.
Not only will high-quality content bring in traffic to your WordPress website, but you will also benefit from long-term traffic that comes from your blog’s rankings.
Some of the most successful affiliates have become experts at using the product or service they are reviewing. In fact, demonstrating real-life experience in your reviews is more important now than ever.
In December 2022, Google added ‘experience’ to their E-E-A-T ranking criteria. Now, unless you show first-hand experience with the products you write about, Google may penalize you in the long run by giving your site a lower search ranking.
Darren Rowse’s Digital Photography School blog is a great example of what you should be doing. He shows excellent photos taken on Canon and Nikon SLR cameras and then mentions those cameras in posts and tutorials.
Not only does this improve his ‘experience’ score with Google, but when his visitors are inspired by the spectacular photos taken by the cameras he reviews, they will be more likely to purchase them using his affiliate links.
You can do the same by producing more content, such as detailed blog posts or YouTube videos, displaying your skills using the actual product or service. Just make sure you don’t just talk about a product’s features. You also need to show your audience how they can use those features to get great results.
3. Use a Centralized Affiliate Link Management System
The best way to add affiliate links to your website or blog is by using a plugin like Pretty Links or ThirstyAffiliates. Creating a centralized affiliate link management system in your WordPress dashboard can save you a lot of time.
For example, when one of your affiliate partners changes your link, you would normally need to find every post where the link appears and update the link manually.
But with an affiliate link plugin, you simply need to update it once, and it will update across your entire website.
These plugins will also let you cloak the affiliate links you promote on your website. Typically, affiliate links are long and ugly like this:
A cloaked affiliate link looks better and is easier to understand:
http://www.yoursite.com/refer/productname
Besides these benefits, an affiliate link manager lets you categorize your links, add notes, check for links that have stopped working, and much more. This means you can spend less time managing your affiliate links and more time creating high-quality content.
4. Enable Affiliate Link Tracking
Now that you’ve added affiliate links to your website, it’s essential to track how many times each one is being clicked.
This will help you see which affiliate products are performing well, and which of your blog posts are generating the most clicks.
This information will let you make improvements to your website that result in more revenue, and you can also use the metrics to negotiate with your partner companies for higher payouts. I’ll talk about this more later on.
Google Analytics can show how much traffic your links are sending to each affiliate product, but beginners can find it tricky to use.
Instead, I recommend using an analytics plugin like MonsterInsights because it makes your analytics easy to understand and supports affiliate link tracking out of the box.
Now that you know how much traffic you are sending to each affiliate link, you should compare it with the revenue you made. This will help you discover your highest-performing products, and focusing on them will boost your affiliate income.
5. Convert Up to 60% of Abandoning Visitors With an Affiliate Popup
We spoke earlier about how to increase your affiliate income by bringing more visitors to your website. It’s also important to think about the visitors leaving your site, or you will miss out on sales.
You need to grab the attention of abandoning visitors before they leave your site because 70% of them will never come back.
Nadi Lopez, a marketing specialist at Top 6 Digital, combats this using an exit-intent popup. It detects the user’s mouse movement and shows them an affiliate promotion when they’re about to leave.
He uses OptinMonster to display a popup that is customized for the content the reader is viewing at the time, like this:
The plan worked, and 17.31% of visitors who saw the popup above clicked the link.
As a result, Top 6 Digital’s affiliate revenue increased by 30%, and on some web pages, as many as 62% of abandoning visitors were converted.
Your visitors won’t click a link they don’t notice. You’ll get more clicks and revenue by highlighting the affiliate mentions in your articles.
You can try doing this in lots of different ways. Just make sure you track affiliate clicks to measure which methods are most effective on your blog and individual posts.
For example, you can highlight a link by simply bolding it or using colored text.
Or you can make a link more obvious by placing it in an affiliate product box or button. Some websites also use discreet icons like arrows or shopping carts next to the links to show they are affiliate links.
You could also create a call to action (CTA) where you mention the affiliate product or service. For best results, use persuasive language that encourages readers to learn more or click through.
7. Negotiate With Brands for a Higher Commission Tier
Finally, you can make more affiliate income by simply asking your partners for a higher commission percentage. This can potentially help you make the biggest gains in revenue.
Because you’ve already enabled link tracking, you will be able to gather the information you need to demonstrate the value you bring your affiliate partner.
Make sure you do your research first. Some affiliate plans may already offer a tiered structure that pays higher commission rates for higher sales volumes. Otherwise, you can speak to the affiliate manager about increasing the rates for your website.
Don’t become aggressive or demanding or you may damage your relationship with the company. Make sure you remain courteous and flexible and aim for a win-win outcome.
Are you ready to take your influencer marketing knowledge to the next level?
You can think of this article as your ultimate cheat sheet because we’ve packed over 60 statistics into this post that will help you better understand the impact and benefits of influencer partnerships.
When you know how influencer marketing can impact consumer trust and engagement, you will be better equipped to make the right choices when hiring an influencer. Alternatively, if you are a content creator looking for business partners, then you probably want to know how much to ask for and where to find the best opportunities.
So, let’s take a look at the most important influencer marketing statistics in 2024.
List of Influencer Marketing Statistics for 2024
We recommend reading our list from top to bottom so you don’t miss any important details. But if you are in a hurry and need to find a specific set of influencer statistics, then feel free to click the links below to get to the section you’d like to read:
As of 2024, it’s estimated that the influencer marketing industry is worth $21.1 billion, and that number is expected to grow over the next several years.
83% of business owners who have tried influencer marketing say it has helped grow their companies.
According to 60% of marketers, influencer-made posts perform better than traditional branded content.
The top 5 countries for influencer marketing are the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia, and Germany.
Here are the top 6 influencer niches: lifestyle, fashion, beauty, travel, model, and health and fitness.
39% of brand leaders say they have only worked with 10 influencers or less.
On average, influencers respond to brand proposals within 14 hours.
Influencer fraud is down, with less than 37% of accounts impacted. This is impressive when you consider that this number was 50% in 2021.
89% of marketers who used influencer marketing last year say they will maintain or boost their spending this year.
There’s no doubt that influencer marketing is growing in ways we never would have imagined 10+ years ago. As of right now, the industry is worth over $21 billion, and we don’t see things changing any time soon.
Business leaders and marketers will continue working with influencers because it helps them boost sales, engagement, and brand awareness. All three of these factors are very important for their long-term success.
On the other side of things, people are also discovering that they can grow an audience and get paid to promote their favorite products and services. While many people already make a living by being influencers, more content creators are entering the arena every day.
Now that you are starting to realize the impact of influencer marketing, let’s dive in and look at some earning statistics.
Influencer Earning Statistics
Most influencers are compensated with money (41.6%), free products (29.5%), a steep in-store discount (17.7%), and giveaway entries (11.2%). This means paying influencers cash for their services is the top pick.
However, close to 85% of influencers say they are happy to work for free products if they know and trust the brand or if the product is a high-ticket item.
A majority of businesses do both: pay for influencer services and include the product they want the person to promote in the package.
Influencers with less than 10,000 followers charge between $20 and $100 for a post.
Creators with 10,000 to 50,000 followers charge between $35 and $450 per post.
Influencers with more than 50k but less than 500k followers charge $150 to $2,500.
Macro influencers, meaning those with 500k to 1 million followers, charge between $250 and $7,000 for collaborations.
Almost 75% of marketers have turned to affiliate marketing to boost their earnings.
This makes sense when you consider over 80% of brands run affiliate programs.
In total, 26% of influencers earn about $500 per month for their work.
Meanwhile, 15% earn $5,000 or more each month through brand deals and content.
Influencers love what they do because they get cash payments, free products, and much more for working with partners in their niche. The statistics show that most businesses pay their partners for posts, which is great news for content creators.
However, it’s also worth noting that nearly 85% of influencers are more than happy to accept a product as compensation if it’s from a brand they trust. That means that working on your social proof could help your business build better relationships with influencers.
It’s also worth noting the different types of influencers and how the rates can change. For instance, someone with less than 50,000 followers is almost always cheaper than someone with over 1 million followers.
If you are an influencer, we recommend calculating your price by looking at your efforts, audience size, and reach. You will meet people who will offer you much more and much less than the median numbers we listed above, so don’t get discouraged if you get a few low offers.
If you run your own website, then we recommend using a tool like MonsterInsights to track your website analytics. This will give you access to plenty of data, including your pageviews, visitors, and most popular content. Then, you can use this information to negotiate a better deal with businesses that you want to promote and endorse.
Globally, 4.74 billion people use social media. That’s almost 60% of the population!
The average person spends around 2 hours and 30 minutes on social media every day.
43% of people turn to social media sites when they are thinking of buying a product but don’t know where to start.
89% of marketers say Instagram is the best place to work with influencers.
YouTube and TikTok are also extremely popular places to connect with influencers.
Don’t be afraid to diversify your strategy because omnichannel marketing gets 90% more engagement and customer retention when compared to single-channel marketing.
There are over 100,000 self-described TikTok influencers in the United States.
The majority of these influencers have between 50k and 100k followers.
Instagram boasts an impressive 500,000 influencers, which is why it’s one of the most popular platforms.
On average, influencers use 2 or more social media accounts to build and maintain their reputations.
Over 75% of all influencer marketers use social media engagement metrics to track their performance.
Nearly 60% of the world has at least one social media account, and the average person spends over 2 hours a day on these sites.
Due to the popularity of these platforms, you would struggle to find influencers who don’t use social media to build and maintain their audiences.
Despite there being many platforms to choose from, three clear winners shine above the rest: Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. These platforms have massive audiences, and most of them are willing to listen to influencers they trust and check out their product recommendations.
If you are an influencer with a website, then you probably want to know how to bring your site and social media together to maximize conversions. Luckily, the answer is easier than you might think.
You can easily harness the power of social media on your site with Smash Balloon. It is the best social feed plugin that works with all the popular social media platforms, including Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
You can use Smash Balloon to embed your social feeds into your website and show visitors what’s happening on your social media accounts. This is a great way to transfer energy and excitement, which means a more engaged audience. Plus, you can allow people to follow and like your social content from your website, which can grow your audience.
Influencer Costs and Engagement Statistics
Most companies spend less than $50,000 per year on influencer marketing, but about 11% spend $500k or more.
The average cost of working with an influencer is $257 per post, but that number can vary wildly based on audience size, industry, and reach.
About 61% of people work with the same influencers multiple times instead of constantly seeking new partners.
The two most common challenges that businesses have when looking for influencers are finding someone who has a similar audience and partnering with influencers who create high-quality content.
You may be shocked to learn that about 11% of businesses report spending over $500k on influencer deals. It’s safe to say that these are probably companies that are working with celebrity-level influencers. It’s not uncommon for people in this category to get paid $5,000 or more for a single post!
But don’t worry. The majority of marketers spend less than $50k a year to maintain influencer partnerships. This is partly due to the fact that influencers and marketers prefer long-term arrangements.
Partnerships like this allow both sides to benefit. The influencers work with a company they are familiar with and may get access to new products in advance. Meanwhile, businesses and marketers can work with someone who genuinely understands their products and is able to connect with their target audience.
Influencer Benefit Statistics for Businesses
In 2023, 80% of online business owners who tried influencer marketing decided to dedicate a budget specifically to this strategy.
This makes sense when you consider that influencer-generated content sees 8x more engagement compared to traditional social media posts.
The top two reasons brands partner with influencers are that they want to expand their reach and generate more sales.
Over half of all marketers say influencer partnerships have helped them find people who are genuinely interested in their products or services.
68% of marketers say they prefer working with influencers for brand collaborations.
There are many ways to measure the success of your influencer campaigns. The three most common facts include views, reach, and impressions.
75% of businesses track influencer sales individually so that they can work with people who deliver the strongest return on investment (ROI).
72% of businesses have an in-house influencer marketing campaign, as opposed to hiring an agency to find partners and establish deals.
On average, successful businesses that use influencer marketers earn $5.78 in revenue for each dollar spent.
When we look a little deeper, it’s clear that there are plenty of benefits for brands that partner with influencers. A whopping 80% of leaders who have worked with at least one social media influencer said it was worth pursuing.
One of the main reasons for this is that user-generated content, on average, sees 8x more engagement than normal posts and other branded content.
Businesses also have plenty of tools at their disposal to ensure they can find and keep the best influencers for their business. If you allow your influencers to also become affiliates, then we recommend keeping track of how everyone is doing with AffiliateWP.
AffiliateWP is the best self-hosted affiliate plugin that lets you set up your own affiliate program and track your affiliate partners. This allows you to see who is driving the most traffic and sales to your website. Once you know who your top performers are, you can prioritize them for new projects.
Influencer Content Statistics
Almost 90% of consumers say they have engaged with an influencer at some point.
60% of online shoppers say they are more willing to trust an influencer if they regularly engage with comments on their content.
90% of shoppers say user-generated content (like influencer reviews) impacts their shopping habits.
In the same group of shoppers, 61% say they trust reviews from reputable influencers just as much as a recommendation from friends and family.
32% of Gen Z claim they bought something they didn’t know existed because of an influencer.
More than 40% of these people say they prefer watching reviews made by influencers they know and trust.
91% of people want to see more interactive content.
Video content is a popular choice for influencers because the average person watches 100 minutes of content online every day.
Nano influencers have a content engagement rate of 5%, which is significantly higher than the industry average of 2.2%.
98% of businesses will not reach out to an influencer if their content isn’t relevant to their target audience.
Influencer content comes in many different shapes and sizes. The most common format is video, but it’s not uncommon to see content creators use images, social media posts, and articles to promote partner brands.
When it comes to the type of content, reviews have the number one spot. Nearly 90% of people say reviews from influencers have a direct impact on how they shop. If someone’s favorite influencer tells them your product is the best, then there’s a good chance they will visit your website and make a purchase.
Reviews also act as social proof for business owners. People are more likely to think you are trustworthy if people they trust say you are great. So, even if the customer is not ready to buy right this second, they will remember your company in the future.
It’s also common for influencers to create a website where they can promote products and services.
Then, they could use a tool like OptinMonster to create a popup that invites users to join their email list in exchange for exclusive coupons that the subscriber can use on partner sites. This strategy helps influencers connect with their audience and allows them to understand which content resonates with their readers.
Technology and the Future of Influencer Marketing
63% of businesses say they use artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline their influencer marketing campaigns.
The three main reasons for using AI and machine learning technology in this field include identifying influencers (64%), finding and distributing relevant content (13.3%), and identifying spammy influencers and fake engagement (5.6%)
Over 50% of influencers think natural language processing (NLP) will make their jobs easier in the future.
About 30% of influencers have invested in premium marketing software so they can manage and automate their campaigns.
By the end of 2024, it’s estimated that brands will spend $7.14 billion on influencer marketing.
Experts believe that the influencer industry will be worth an impressive $22.2 billion by 2025.
The market for influencer marketing software is predicted to grow by $223.7 million by 2025.
Businesses and influencers are using AI and machine learning to make their jobs easier. We expect to see both groups continue using these tools to do things like finding relevant partners, distributing content, and scheduling posts.
When it comes to the future of influencer marketing, things are looking bright. It’s estimated that the industry will be worth $22.2 billion by 2025. Plus, the need for influencer marketing software is expected to grow by $223.7 million in just one year.
It doesn’t matter if you are an experienced influencer, thinking about entering the industry, or a business looking for influencer partners. There are more opportunities than ever before, and we expect the industry will keep growing in the future.
We hope this list of influencer marketing statistics and trends helps you improve your strategy as a business owner or increase your sales as an influencer. You may also want to see our list of affiliate marketing statistics or our expert pick of the best affiliate marketing tools.
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Are you looking for some user experience feedback questions to ask your visitors?
By asking user experience feedback questions, you can better understand your users’ needs and expectations, identify areas that need improvement, and measure overall customer satisfaction. This can help you gain a competitive advantage over other websites.
In this article, we will share some of the best user experience feedback questions to ask website visitors and show you how to survey users in WordPress.
Why Ask User Experience Feedback Questions in WordPress?
If you have a WordPress website, then asking users for feedback will help you gather insights into their needs, preferences, and dislikes. This is essential for improving your website’s design, content, and functionality to align with user expectations.
Feedback can even reveal website areas that can be optimized to increase conversions, like improving the checkout process. You can then implement these suggestions to generate more leads and make more sales.
Additionally, asking for user experience feedback can also boost user engagement by showing visitors that their feedback is valued and you are actively working to improve your content.
Having said that, let’s take a look at some of the best user experience feedback questions to ask your website visitors.
User Experience Feedback Questions to Ask Website Visitors
Here are some general questions that you can ask your visitors to learn more about the UX of your website.
1. How would you rate the overall usability of our website?
If you have a WordPress blog, then asking users to rate the overall usability of your website can help you quickly and easily see if your website is doing well or if it has areas that need improvement.
It can also help you track your website’s progress over time as you make changes to improve the overall user experience.
Once you ask this question, you can also add a follow-up question that asks for the user’s reason for the rating that they gave. This will help identify patterns in usability issues and make it easy to troubleshoot those problems.
2. How would you rate the overall speed and responsiveness of our website?
A website’s speed is one of its most important factors because fast-loading page times can improve the user experience, increase pageviews, and boost your WordPress SEO.
You can gauge user satisfaction and engagement by asking users to rate your website speed. For example, if your visitors are giving you low ratings, then it means that your loading times are too long, and people are leaving your site frustrated.
3. What suggestions do you have for improving our website?
By asking users to provide suggestions for improving your website, you can identify usability issues that may have been overlooked by your developers.
For example, a call to action (CTA) on your website may not work, which has caused a lot of users to leave your site frustrated.
We recommend asking this question in a feedback form after users have provided a rating for the overall website usability. This question can help you find out about this issue and also show users that you care about their opinions and experiences.
4. What is your first impression of our website’s homepage?
The homepage is the introduction to your website and is usually the first page that visitors interact with. This page should create positive emotions in users and encourage them to explore your site.
By asking users about their first impression of your website’s homepage, you can assess if the page is effectively communicating your website’s purpose. It can help gain insights into the user’s impression of your branding and overall homepage look.
Asking users what they dislike about your website can uncover specific issues that are causing frustration and dissatisfaction among your visitors and customers.
For example, you might discover that users are annoyed by the number of ads on your site or intrusive popups.
Once you have identified these issues, you can fix them to prevent users from abandoning your website. This can lead to better user loyalty, improve the user experience, and even help increase conversions.
6. What changes can we make to our website design?
By asking for user suggestions, you can gain more ideas for design elements and aesthetics that were overlooked when you were creating your pages.
Visitors can also provide suggestions that will ultimately help improve the user experience. For example, some people may find it difficult to use your navigation menu. This can give you the idea to make your navigation menu more visible and easier to navigate.
Additionally, this user feedback can help you stay up-to-date with the current website design trends and update your pages to match them.
User Experience Feedback Questions to Ask WooCommerce Store Customers
If you have a WooCommerce store, then asking these questions can help improve the user experience in your online store.
1. How was your shopping experience today?
Asking users this question immediately after purchasing can help you gather feedback about the customer’s experience.
It will also help you better understand the overall customer journey, from browsing through your products to completing checkout. This question will reveal patterns, trends, and any errors that are repeatedly being faced by your customers that need to be fixed or improved.
2. What can we do to make our product(s) better?
Asking users for suggestions to improve your products allows you to gain insights into your customers’ unmet needs. This lets you understand the type of solutions that your users are looking for and potentially come up with new features for your products.
This can help you gain a competitive advantage over other online stores by letting you tailor your products to meet users’ needs and expectations.
3. Did you find the information you were looking for on our product page?
This question improves the user experience by helping you identify information gaps. It determines whether your product page effectively communicates the necessary information to help users make informed decisions.
This allows you to understand the type of information that the users want to see for a product and change your pages accordingly.
4. Were you looking for anything today that you couldn’t find?
Asking visitors if they were looking for something they couldn’t find allows you to broaden your store’s scope by taking user ideas into account and adding those products to your inventory.
For example, if you sell clothes online, and users on your website answered that they wanted to find matching accessories with their clothing items, then you could expand into jewelry as well.
5. Was there anything that made you cancel your order?
Customers cancel their orders for several reasons, like high shipping costs, delayed shipping, unexpected charges, or issues during the checkout process.
By asking this question, you can identify the main reason for users canceling their orders in your online store.
For example, if many customers are canceling their orders due to shipping delays, then you can improve the shipping process to reduce delays and improve customer satisfaction.
6. What is the one part of our checkout process that we should improve?
Your store’s checkout process should be seamless to provide a top-notch customer experience. By asking users this question, you can gain a variety of perspectives and identify common issues in the checkout section.
7. What was your main concern or fear before purchasing this product?
By asking users this question, you can find out the potential barriers to purchase and take steps to address those issues on your site.
For instance, you can improve your product messaging and positioning to encourage more users to complete their purchases.
It is also a good idea to create a personalized user experience by setting up personalized recommendations, addressing customer concerns proactively, and offering customer support to boost engagement and satisfaction.
User Experience Feedback Questions to Ask Website Visitors on Mobile
The majority of your users will access your website using mobile devices. These are the user experience feedback questions you can ask visitors to improve your website on mobile.
1. Was our website easy to navigate on mobile?
Over 55% of your website traffic will come from mobile devices. However, your website will look different on mobile due to a smaller screen size and a touch-based interface.
Asking users how easy it is to navigate your site on a mobile device can help identify any design issues that are causing people to leave your site unsatisfied. For instance, you may need to use a responsive WordPress theme and other responsive design elements.
This will help you optimize your site for mobile navigation and can ultimately lead to more conversions.
2. Were any parts of the page not visible or hard to see?
A mobile device’s small screen size can limit the amount of information displayed on a page and make your site look crowded.
3.Did you find the website’s blog posts easy to read on your mobile device?
Blog posts can look different on mobile devices because the text is smaller and the images are more compressed, giving the page a cramped look.
By asking users if they could easily read your posts on mobile devices, you can identify parts of your content that may be difficult to read.
You can then change the font size, break up paragraphs, and use an uncluttered layout to make your blog posts more readable. For more details, just see our guide on how to improve readability in WordPress.
How to Add a User Experience Feedback Prompt in WordPress
You can easily add a quick user experience survey on your WordPress website with UserFeedback. It is the best WordPress feedback plugin on the market that comes with 25+ premade survey templates and lets you ask unlimited questions.
Plus, the plugin offers different types of questions that you can ask, including multiple-choice questions, an NPS survey, a quick rating question, radio buttons, email captures, or an open-ended question for feedback.
Note: UserFeeback also has a free plan. However, we will be using the premium plan to unlock more features.
Upon activation, visit the UserFeedback » Surveys page from the WordPress admin sidebar and click the ‘Create New’ button.
This will direct you to the ‘Select a Template’ page, where you can choose any of the premade templates.
Since you want to ask for user experience feedback, you can select the ‘Website Experience’ template.
This will take you to another screen where you can start creating a user experience feedback survey.
By default, the website experience template asks users to rate their experience on your website. If you want, you can change the question from the text field and then choose a question type from the dropdown menu.
You can add checkboxes, radio buttons, star ratings, text fields, and more.
Once you do that, click the ‘Add Question’ button to add another question to the user experience feedback survey.
This will expand another prompt on the screen where you can add another question.
For example, if you asked users to rate the website user experience in the first question, then you can ask users about everything they think needs to be improved on your site.
After that, you can select ‘Long Answer’ as the question type so that users can answer without any word count restrictions.
You can then switch to the ‘Preview’ link at the top to customize your user experience feedback prompt.
Here, you can change the color scheme, button color, widget color, and text color for the prompt. Once you do that, just click the ‘Next Step: Settings’ button.
You will now be taken to the ‘Settings’ page, where you can start by scrolling down to the ‘Targeting’ section.
Here, you can choose the device type where the survey will be displayed. For example, if you created this survey to gather insights into your performance on mobile devices, then you can select the ‘Mobile’ option. The survey will then only be displayed to the visitors browsing your site on their mobile phones.
After that, you can select the ‘All Pages’ option if you want to display the survey on all the pages and posts on your website.
However, if you want to display the survey on a specific post or page, then you can select the ‘Advanced’ option.
Then, you can specify the conditions for the survey display from the dropdown menu.
For instance, if you want to display the survey on a single page, then you can select the ‘Page URL is’ option from the dropdown menu on the right and then add a page URL into the field on the left.
Next, scroll down to the ‘Behaviour’ section to configure the display timing of your user experience feedback survey.
Here, you can decide when the survey will appear on your page, how often it will be displayed, and how long it will run on your website.
Once you have done that, simply click the ‘Next Step: Notifications’ button.
On the new page, you must toggle on the ‘Send Email’ switch and then enter the email address where you want to receive notifications every time a website visitor completes your feedback survey.
After that, click the ‘Next Step: Publish’ button.
Now that you are on the ‘Publish’ page, simply toggle the ‘Survey Status’ switch to ‘Publish’ to activate your survey.
If you want to schedule your survey for a later date, then you can do that by toggling the ‘Schedule for Later’ switch and adding a specific date and time.
Finally, don’t forget to click the ‘Save and Publish’ or ‘Save and Schedule’ button to store your settings.
You can now visit your WordPress site to view the user experience feedback survey in action.
Once the survey is published, you can easily view its results by visiting the UserFeedback » Results page from the WordPress dashboard.
You will now be able to check the number of responses, impressions, and all the answers provided by your visitors. This can help you improve the overall user experience of your website.
Bonus: How to Do a UX Audit of Your WordPress Site
Apart from gathering feedback to improve the user experience, it is also important to do a UX audit of your website. This means testing your site to see if there are any usability issues that you can fix.
This is a crucial step to ensure that your site is efficient and provides a high-quality experience.
To do a UX audit, you should first be able to recognize your target audience and understand their needs and preferences. Then, you can move on to finding pages on your website with poor user experience.
To do this, you can use MonsterInsights, which is the best Google Analytics plugin on the market. It lets you see where your users are coming from and how they interact with your website. MonsterInsights also allows you to see pages on your site where you get conversions.
Upon installing and activating the MonsterInsights plugin, all you have to do is visit the Insights » Addons page from your WordPress admin sidebar to install and activate the ‘eCommerce’ addon.
After that, go to the Insights » Reports page and switch to the ‘eCommerce’ tab. You will now be able to overview your top-performing products and conversion sources. This will also help you identify the pages and products where you don’t get many conversions.
Additionally, your UX audit may involve optimizing your website’s speed and performance, making your navigation menu simpler, testing conversion elements, and more.
Are you wondering how to use Google Search Console to grow your website traffic?
Google Search Console is a powerful free tool created by Google to help website owners understand how the search engine sees their websites. Unfortunately, most businesses don’t know how to effectively use the full power of Google Search Console to increase their organic traffic.
In this article, we will show you how to properly use Google Search Console to improve your website SEO and get more visitors.
What Is Google Search Console?
Google Search Console is a free tool offered by Google to help website owners monitor and maintain their site’s presence in Google search results.
It provides essential marketing data that you need to start tracking from day one. It also lets you know about errors, security issues, and indexing problems that may affect your website’s search rankings.
You can use all this information in your WordPress SEO strategy to increase your website traffic.
The sad thing is that most businesses don’t utilize the full power of Google Search Console because most of them think that just adding their website to Google Search Console is enough.
There’s so much more that you can do with the tool.
If you are not leveraging all of the powerful features that Google Search Console offers, then you are missing out.
Luckily, we are here to help. We have created this ultimate Google Search Console guide to help you grow your website like a Pro.
Since this is a comprehensive guide, we have added a table of contents for easier navigation:
If you haven’t already done so, then you need to go ahead and add your website to Google Search Console. It is really simple and will only take a few minutes.
You will be asked to sign in using a Google / Gmail account. Once logged in, you will need to enter your website URL.
Google Search Console offers 2 methods for site verification, including domain name or URL prefix. We recommend using the URL Prefix method as it provides more flexibility.
Keep in mind that Google considers HTTP and HTTPS as two different protocols. It also considers https://www.example.com and https://example.com as two different websites.
You will need to make sure that you enter the correct URL for your website.
If you are unsure, then simply log in to your WordPress admin area and go to the Settings » General page. There, you will see your website’s URL in the Site Address field.
After entering your website address, click on the ‘Continue’ button.
Next, you will be asked to verify ownership of your website. There are several ways to do that, but we will show the HTML tag method because it is the easiest one.
Click on the HTML tag to expand it and then copy the code inside it.
Next, you will need to add the code to your WordPress website so that Google can verify the ownership. However, this requires coding, which can be tricky for beginners.
Upon activation, you can go to the AIOSEO » General Settings page and then click the ‘Webmaster Tools’ tab. Next, select the ‘Google Search Console’ option under Webmaster Tools Verification.
After that, go ahead and enter the code you copied earlier from Google Search Console into the ‘Google Verification Code’ box.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your changes.
You can now go back to Google Search Console settings.
You need to click on the ‘Verify’ button.
Google Search Console will now look for the HTML tag in your website code.
Then, it will show you a success message.
That’s all. You have successfully added your site to Google Search Console. You can now click on the ‘Go to Property’ link to visit your Google Search Console dashboard.
Note: If Google Search Console cannot verify your website after you have added the code, then you need to make sure to clear your WordPress cache and try again.
2. Adding an XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap is a way for website owners to tell search engines about all the pages that exist on their website. It also tells search engines which links on your website are more important than others.
Adding an XML sitemap to your website helps search engines better crawl your content. While it doesn’t give you a boost in search rankings, it can definitely help search engines index your content more efficiently.
To see the sitemap, you can head over to All in One SEO » Sitemaps and make sure that the toggle for ‘Enable Sitemap’ is switched on.
The plugin will automatically generate an XML sitemap for your website, and you can find it at the URL that looks like this:
http://example.com/sitemap_index.xml
Don’t forget to replace example.com with your own domain name. You can now submit this URL in Google Search Console.
Just head over to the Google Search Console dashboard and then click on the ‘Sitemaps’ option from the left column. After that, you can paste the URL and click the ‘Submit’ button.
Google Search Console will now check your sitemap and use it to improve your website’s crawling. You can go through our guide on how to add a sitemap page in WordPress for more details.
3. Connecting Google Search Console to Google Analytics
Connecting Google Search Console to your Google Analytics account helps you analyze search console data in Google Analytics. This provides you with a new perspective on your top-performing content and keywords.
If you haven’t already done so, then you will need to install Google Analytics on your WordPress website.
We recommend using MonsterInsights for this. It is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress, and it will automatically show your top keywords from Google Search Console in your WordPress admin area.
However, if you wish to see the Google Search Console report on the Google Analytics website, then you will first need to connect the two services.
You can connect Google Search Console to your Analytics account from either the Google Search Console or Google Analytics website. For this tutorial, we will initiate the connection from Google Search Console since we are already there, and it’s easier.
In the bottom left corner of the Google Search Console screen, click on the ‘Settings’ button. Then under ‘General settings’ you should click on the > arrow next to ‘Associations’.
This will open a page where you can see a list of services you previously associated with Google Search Console, if any. However, if you have not already associated with Google Analytics or any other Google service, then the list will be empty.
Under that, you will see a link where you can associate Google Analytics with Google Search Console. Simply click the word ‘Associate’ to get started.
You will see a popup asking you to select the Google Analytics GA4 property you wish to associate. After that, you will see another popup asking you to select the GA4 web stream.
Finally, you will see a third popup asking you to confirm the association. Simply click the ‘Associate’ button to confirm.
That’s all. You have successfully connected your Google Search Console data to your Analytics account.
You can now see on the Google Analytics Search Console settings page that Google Analytics is an associated service.
Google Search Console data is available 48 hours after it is collected, and will go on being available for the next 16 months.
Now you can add the Google Search Console report to Google Analytics.
You need to visit the Google Analytics website and make sure you are logged in. Once there, you need to click the second icon at the left of the screen, which is ‘Reports’.
After that, you should click ‘Library’ in the menu on the left of the screen.
Now, under ‘Collections’, you need to find Search Console and click ‘Edit collection’.
You don’t need to make any changes on the next screen. Simply click the ‘Back’ button at the top of the screen.
Now, you can click the 3 dots at the top of the Search Console card to show more options.
A dropdown menu will appear, and you should click ‘Publish’.
This will add a new Search Console section to the navigation menu for Google Analytics Reports.
Now, you can view your Google Search Console report in Google Analytics by navigating to reports and then expanding the Search Console section.
4. Finding and Fixing Search Indexing Issues
The most helpful feature of Google Search Console is that you can troubleshoot indexing errors.
These errors can affect your organic search rankings by stopping search engines from crawling and indexing the pages on your website.
You can easily locate these errors in the Pages report (previously called the Coverage report).
It shows you which pages from your website are indexed by Google and which pages resulted in an error or a warning.
When you scroll down, you will see a detailed list of all the errors. Clicking on a link will open the detailed view, where you will also find the link to learn more about the error and how to fix it.
The following are a few common indexing errors you may see:
404 error – This error means that the crawler followed a URL and saw a 404 error.
Soft 404 error – This error occurs when the crawler sees a 404 error page, but the page’s status code sends a 200 (success) message to the browser.
Server error – This means that your website server timed out or didn’t respond. This could happen if your website was under heavy traffic, under maintenance, or unavailable for any other reason.
Not followed – This error occurs when Google is not able to follow a content type. This could be a flash, JavaScript, iframe, or other resources that the crawler cannot fetch.
Now, let’s take a look at how to fix some of these crawl errors.
5. Fixing 404 Errors in Google Search Console
First, you need to keep in mind that not all 404 errors are equal. You can safely ignore some of them and only fix those that are actually errors.
For example, if you deleted a blog post and don’t want to redirect users to a newer post, then it is ok to let Google see a 404 error page. Google will eventually deindex that page if it keeps seeing the 404 error.
However, the reason Google wants you to look at those 404 errors is that you may not be aware of them. For example, you accidentally deleted something or forgot to redirect users to the new, updated version.
Simply click on the error in the Pages report, and it will show you all the pages displaying that error. Carefully review the pages, and if you see a page that shouldn’t be there, then copy its URL and open it in a new browser window.
If you see a 404 error page in your browser, then this means that you need to fix this page.
Now, if it is a page that no longer exists, but you have a newer or similar version of it, then you will want to redirect users to that page. See our guide on how to set up redirects in WordPress.
To fix this, simply visit Settings » Permalinks and then click on the ‘Save Changes’ button without changing anything.
6. Fixing Soft 404 Errors in Google Search Console
Soft 404 errors are a bit tricky to troubleshoot.
Basically, these errors occur when the Google bot sees what looks like a 404 error document instead of content. However, your server is sending a 200 (success) code.
Normally, your server sends a 200 success code when a page is displayed without an error or redirect.
To resolve soft 404 errors, go ahead and click on the errors in the Pages report to view the list of affected pages.
Now, you need to open the page in a new browser tab to see what’s happening. If the page displays correctly, then you can safely ignore the error.
On the other hand, if the page is showing a 404 error document, then you may want to investigate further.
Start by clicking the ‘Submitted URL seems to be a Soft 404’ link from the Pages report. Next, you can open the link in a new tab to check if it’s not a false alarm.
If the page is valid and you want it to appear in the search results, then simply click the ‘VALIDATE FIX’ button. Google will then recrawl the page and change the status error.
If the WordPress search function causes the soft 404 errors you are seeing, then the easiest solution is to stop the Google bot from crawling search URLs.
To do that, you need to add the following lines to your robots.txt file:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /?s=
Disallow: /search/
Usually, Google Bot doesn’t crawl search URLs. However, some spammers might try to spam Google search console reports by linking to search URLs with random strings. This way, they hope you will see their link in your Search Console report and click on it.
If the affected URLs are not searched queries, then you may want to redirect them to a proper page on your site.
7. Fixing Server Error in Google Search Console
Server errors in Google Search Console are caused by a number of reasons. The most common cause is when your server times out during a crawl, throws an unexpected error or does not appear to be online.
You can use the ‘URL inspection’ tool to make sure that the affected URL is working.
If it is working, then you can ignore the error. If you are on a reliable WordPress hosting provider, then most server errors will disappear automatically.
However, if you can confirm the error by visiting the URL, then there are several things you can do to fix it. See our list of the most common WordPress errors guide to find a fix for the specific error message you are seeing.
8. Finding and Fixing Security Issues
Security issues not only stop Google from crawling your website, but they could also cause a sudden drop in search traffic. Google may temporarily remove affected pages, show a warning to users, and drop a page’s ranking.
Security issues will be highlighted on the overview screen when you log in to your Google Search Console account. The most common WordPress security issue is a website affected by malware and trojans.
While security issues are automatically triggered, manual actions are the penalties that are imposed by human staff from the Google Search team after a careful review. If a manual action is taken against your website, then this is pretty significant and can immediately take away all your search traffic.
These manual actions usually occur when a website is involved in illegal activities, spamming, and other fraudulent or fishy activities.
Clicking on the ‘Manual Actions’ link will show you the actions in your search console report. You will also find detailed information about the issue that triggered it and how to clean it up.
Once you have removed the objectionable content, you can click on the ‘Request review’ button. Your website will now be reviewed and reconsidered by the Google Search team, and they can decide to remove the penalty.
10. Using Google Search Console to Grow Traffic
Now that we have covered the technical bits, let’s get to the fun part of growing your website traffic by using the data available in Search Console.
Google Search Console helps you uncover keyword data, find out your top-performing keywords, and discover hundreds of potential keywords where you can easily rank and get more traffic.
We will also look at links and how to use them to improve search performance.
Ready? Let’s get started.
11. Mining Keyword Data in Google Search Console
Keywords are the search terms users type in search engines to find information.
Marketers and website owners can optimize their content to target desired keywords and improve their chances of appearing on top in search results.
You can also view the keyword data in your Google Search Console reports.
It gives you a full view of the keywords your website is ranking for, average position, clicks, and impressions (number of times your site appears for that keyword).
You can see this information in your Google Search Console reports under the ‘Performance’ tab.
On the top, you will see a graph of your website’s performance in search results.
Below that, you will see the keyword data, which you can filter by position, impression, and click-through rate.
You can sort this data by clicking on any column.
You can also use the filter option to narrow down the results.
Just switch to the ‘Pages’ tab to see the performance of your pages in search results.
Clicking on any page in the list will filter the results for that page. You can then switch to the ‘Queries’ tab to see the keywords that bring the traffic to that particular page.
Now that we have covered how to browse and view this data, let’s see how to actually use this in your SEO and content planning.
12. Finding Low-Hanging Keywords Where You Can Easily Rank
A lot of your pages may be ranking on page 2 or 3 of Google search results for different keywords. These are the keywords that you can quickly work on to rank higher and get more traffic.
Let’s find those keywords.
In your Performance report, click on the filter icon and then select the ‘Position’ option. Next, you will be looking for keywords where the average position is higher than 7.
Now, click twice on the ‘Position’ column to sort the list in ascending order.
As you scroll down, you will find tons of keywords that rank between 7 and 30. All these keywords are low-hanging fruits where you can easily rank higher.
To view more results, scroll to the bottom and select a higher number for ‘Rows per page.’
When choosing the keywords to work on, you will want to pick them based on the number of impressions. Higher impressions mean more search traffic for those keywords.
To do that, you can export the data in CSV format and then open it in spreadsheet software.
Now that you have mined the low-hanging keywords with higher impressions, the question is, how do you improve your rankings for those keywords?
Here are some tips to help you improve your rankings for those keywords.
1. Improve the Content by Adding More Useful Information
The #1 reason your page isn’t ranking for a keyword is that Google finds other content more valuable. To counter that, you need to review your article or blog post and add helpful content.
Look at the articles ranking in the top 5 positions for that keyword and cover all the information that your article is missing in more detail.
We are not saying that you should just add more text to it. You need to make it more useful, informative, and comprehensive.
Using All in One SEO (AIOSEO) can improve the on-page SEO score for your article. It gives practical tips on improving a page by analyzing the content, keyword density, title, readability, links, and more.
Google considers it a success when users click on a search result and spend time viewing it. This means your content needs to be highly engaging and instantly provide users with the information they are looking for.
Here are some crazy simple things you can do to increase user engagement:
Use images – Users find images much easier to look at than text. Adding more images makes it easier for users to scan the information and keeps them engaged.
Use videos – Videos are the most engaging form of content available. Adding video to a page significantly increases the time users spend viewing that page.
Make text more readable – Use smaller paragraphs, lots of white space, simpler sentences, and keep your style casual and conversational. All these things make reading easier for users.
Links play an important role in WordPress SEO. Search engines use them as a metric to determine how important a page is and where it should rank in search results.
The Links report in Google Search helps you see your website’s performance in terms of links.
It shows you external links, internal links, top-linking sites, and top-linking text. More importantly, it shows top linking sites, how often they link to your site, and how many pages they link to.
Let’s see how you can use these reports to get more backlinks, improve internal links, and boost your rankings.
14. Getting More Backlinks From Third-Party Websites
Google Search Console shows third-party websites that have linked to your site in the ‘Top linking sites’ report.
You can expand the report by clicking on the ‘More’ link at the bottom.
If you click on a domain name to expand the report, you will see all the pages they have linked to. Next, click on each page to get the exact URL linked to that particular page.
You can now use this data to get more backlinks for your site. Simply visit the website and see how they have linked to you. After that, see what other content they have where your site can be linked from.
Next, simply reach out to the website via email or the contact form on their website.
First, thank them for linking to your article and then politely mention that they may want to include a link to an article of yours.
Now, this direct approach may not always work. In that case, you need to be creative. You can offer them to write a guest post for their blog, leave comments on their articles, follow them on social media, or retweet their articles.
Repeat the process for all important external links on your website. With consistent effort, you can get proper backlinks without spending any money.
15. Improving Internal Links to Boost Rankings
It is harder to get third-party websites to link to your content. However, it is way easier to link to your own content from your own site. This practice is called internal linking.
Internal linking helps search engines understand the context and relationships among different pages on your website. It also helps them understand which pages are important based on how often you have linked to them.
This is why you should make internal linking a habit when writing new content on your website or blog.
Now, let’s see how to use the links reports in Search Console to help you build internal links.
In Google Search Console, click on the Links report and then click on the ‘More’ link in the ‘Internal Links’ column. The report shows how often you have linked to other pages on your site.
Go ahead and click the filter icon and then select the ‘Target page’ option.
Search Console will now show you how many pages are linking to this page. You can now compare it with other pages and see whether pages with more internal links are ranking higher than posts with many internal links.
If that’s the case, then go ahead and start adding internal links to pages that you want to rank higher. Make sure you are only linking to the article when it makes sense. Adding links where they don’t make sense would create a bad user experience.
Did you know that Google considers your website loading speed as a ranking factor?
In 2020, Google introduced Core Web Vitals, which measure how fast your website is and helps the search engine measure your site’s user experience.
In Google Search Console, you can view the ‘Core Web Vitals’ report under the Experience menu on your left. It provides a complete report about your site’s speed score for mobile and desktop.
The best part is that you also get recommendations on how to improve your Core Web Vitals scores and improve your site’s load time.
This will bring you to the Search Statistics dashboard. Here, you can view search stats like impressions, total clicks, average click-through rate (CTR), and the average position of all your content for the date range you have set.
You can also see easy-to-read reports on your keyword positions, keyword rankings, content rankings, and more.
You can even view your ‘top winning’ and ‘top losing’ keywords, which are the keywords that have seen the biggest position change in search results.
This report, along with AIOSEO’s built-in SEO recommendations, makes it easy to nudge your losing keywords back to the top of search results and ensure your winning content continues to rank well.
In addition, AIOSEO offers a Content Rankings report to help you easily spot content decay. It includes details like the date a URL was last updated, the rate at which your content is decaying, SEO data about each individual URL, and more.
This will help you quickly identify what content needs to be updated and optimized so that you can drive more traffic to your website.
17. Creating Rich Snippets for Your WordPress Pages
Rich snippets or schema markup allows Google to display additional information in its search results. These include star ratings, prices, reviews, and more.
Rich snippets make your page more noticeable in the search results. As a result, you can get more clicks and website traffic.
Many WordPress themes automatically include some basic structured data. If you publish recipes, run a reviews site, or have an online store, then rich snippets can give your site an SEO boost.
Google Search Console makes it very easy to find pages that are displaying rich snippets. It also shows the type of rich snippets for your website.
You can view them by going to ‘Overview’ and then scrolling down to the ‘Enhancements’ section.
The really useful thing is that the report allows you to quickly look at pages that have errors while displaying rich snippets so that you can fix them.
18. Using Search Console to Improve Mobile Usability
Nearly 63% of all Google searches in the United States come from mobile devices. That’s why Google gives an SEO bump to mobile-friendly websites in the search results.
Google has a Mobile-Friendly test tool called Lighthouse that allows you to quickly examine a page. The Mobile Usability report in Search Console also tells you how Google sees your entire website in mobile performance.
If you see errors on this page, then this means that these issues may affect your site’s rankings.
To see the affected pages, you can scroll down to the ‘Details’ section and click on the error.
Poorly coded WordPress themes or plugins cause most mobile usability issues. The easiest way to fix those issues is by using a responsive WordPress theme.
19. Using the URL Inspection Tool in Search Console
The URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console provides information about a page and whether it’s in the Google search results or not.
You can check the status of a page and also request Google to recrawl a page. To start, simply enter a URL in the top search bar.
Google Search Console will then show you the status of the page that is indexed by Google. If it’s not indexed, then you will see a message saying, ‘URL is not on Google.’
You can click the ‘Requesting Indexing’ button and request Google to manually fetch the page from your website.
Besides that, you can scroll down and see more details in the Pages report. It will show information about sitemaps, crawl history, and indexing.
You can also live-test a URL and see if there is an indexable version available.
If there is, then simply click the ‘Request Indexing’ option.
20. Removing URLs From Google Search
So far, we have focused on using Search Console to get your content indexed and improve rankings in Google Search. However, sometimes you may want to remove content from Google Search as well.
One way to do this is to add a noindex meta tag to the page you want to remove from search results. However, depending on how often Google crawls your website, it could take some time before your page actually disappears from search results.
Search Console’s Remove URL tool allows you to request a URL to be removed from the search results. Simply click on ‘Removals’ under Index in the menu on your left.
Now click on the ‘New Request’ button, and a popup window will appear.
Go ahead and enter the URL you want to remove, select whether you want to remove this URL only or with this prefix, and click the ‘Next’ button.
Google will now block the URL from its search results for about 6 months. You can add as many URLs as you want and see them in the Removals section in Search Console.
21. Adding Users to Access Google Search Console
If you have a marketing team or you have hired someone to help you with SEO, then those users may also need access to Google Search Console data.
Search Console allows you to easily add users and give them access to view all reports without sharing your Google account credentials with them.
To add a new user, simply click on the Settings » Users and permissions option under Property settings and then click on the ‘Add User’ button.
Next, you need to provide the user’s valid Google account email address.
Then, select a permission to grant them.
There are two types of permission levels. The full permission level will give them access to everything, including the ability to add new users. Restricted permissions will allow them to view the data but not add new users.
After choosing a permission level, click on the ‘Add’ button to save your changes.
The user who you added will now receive an email notification so they can log in and view Google Search Console data for your website.
Helpful Resources
The following helpful resources on WPBeginner will help you further improve your website’s performance in search engines:
Ultimate WordPress SEO Guide – Our complete step-by-step WordPress SEO guide will walk you through setting up WordPress SEO like a pro.
WordPress Performance Guide – Step-by-step guide to improve your WordPress speed and performance for higher search rankings and better user experience.
WordPress Security Guide – Keep your WordPress site secure with this complete WordPress security guide for beginners.
Tracking User Engagement – This guide helps you learn how to track user activity on your website and use it to plan your growth strategy.
Convert Visitors into Customers – If you run an online store, then this guide will show you how to convert search traffic into paying customers.
Do you want to add an order bump to WooCommerce and increase your sales?
An order bump is a tactic that encourages shoppers to buy more products than they initially planned. It’s an easy and popular strategy to boost sales by offering a relevant product or a special deal during checkout.
In this guide, we will show you how to create an order bump in your WooCommerce store. This way, you can get more profits without putting in a lot of extra effort.
Why Should You Add an Order Bump in WooCommerce?
In eCommerce, an order or checkout bump is a common strategy that can increase the average order value (AOV). It encourages customers to spend more money when making a purchase by offering them extra products or deals during checkout.
If you run an online store, then an order bump can easily boost your sales and revenue without much effort.
Instead of launching an elaborate marketing campaign, all you need to do is showcase related products that the customer may be interested in. By doing this, you make it convenient for buyers to add more items with just a single click.
Typically, eCommerce plugins or software don’t offer an order bump feature by default. For example, if you are using WooCommerce, then you will need a WordPress plugin to enable checkout bumps.
Now, let’s take a look at how to create an order bump for WooCommerce.
How to Create an Order Bump in WooCommerce
The best way to create an order bump in WooCommerce is with FunnelKit Builder, which is an advanced WooCommerce sales funnel platform. It lets you easily optimize your store pages to get more conversions and revenue.
We recommend using FunnelKit Builder because it has a lot of rules and settings that you can configure for your order bump. This way, you can tailor it precisely to your website visitors.
Plus, FunnelKit comes with templates to boost your online store sales, cart abandonment funnels to recover lost potential revenue, and dashboard analytics to see your store’s performance.
Once you have access to the plugin zip file and license key, you can install the plugin. For more information, check out our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Then, you need to activate the license key. To do this, simply go to FunnelKit » Settings from your WordPress dashboard, navigate to the ‘General’ tab, and select ‘License.’
Copy and paste the license key into the ‘FunnelKit Funnel Builder Pro’ field and select the default page builder you are using. After that, just click ‘Activate’ and then ‘Save Changes.’
Once you’ve done that, you will need to set up your WooCommerce checkout page. For details on how to do that using FunnelKit, you can read our article on how to customize your WooCommerce checkout.
Now that you’ve configured the checkout page, let’s add an order bump to it. All you need to do is go to FunnelKit » Store Checkout. Then, click on the ‘Add Order Bump’ button.
A popup will appear asking to name the order bump. This will come in handy if you have multiple order bumps and need to pick between them.
Once you’ve filled out a name, click ‘Add.’
Now, you should see the order bump has been added to your checkout funnel.
To continue with the next steps, go ahead and click the ‘Edit’ button.
Adding and Configuring Your Order Bump Offer
Now, you need to add complementary products to your checkout page.
With FunnelKit, you can adjust the rules to trigger the order bump. For this step, you will pick which purchase should cause the special offer to appear during checkout.
Then, click the ‘Add Product’ button.
Now, a popup window will appear, asking you to select the products.
Here, you can enter multiple products that you think will complement the buyer’s purchase. Once done, hit the ‘Add Product’ button.
After that, you can configure the product offer. Just select one of the discount types: Percentage % on Sale Price, Fixed Amount on Sale Price, Percentage % on Regular Price, or Fixed Amount on Regular Price.
If you want, then you can also offer more than one quantity of the item.
Once the settings look good, just click ‘Save Changes’ at the top.
Scrolling down, you’ll find the Order Bump Settings section.
This is where you can adjust the order bump’s behavior and display position during checkout.
There are two ‘Behaviour’ options. One is ‘Add Order Bumps to Cart Items,’ which allows customers to add the suggested product as an extra purchase in their cart.
The second option is ‘Replace Order Bumps with a Cart Item (used for upgrades).’With this, customers can choose to replace their purchase by upgrading to a higher-end version of the product.
For example, let’s say your online store sells a subscription product for 3 and 6 months, and your customer chooses to buy the 3-month period subscription. You can show an offer to upgrade to the 6-month period instead to provide more value for money.
Or, let’s say your eCommerce website sells coffee-related products, and a customer is purchasing coffee beans only. You can add an order bump that replaces their bean purchase with a bundle of coffee beans with a grinder.
When picking the Display Position, we recommend choosing a location that catches the shopper’s attention before they finalize their purchase. This way, the order bump is easily noticeable and doesn’t disrupt the customer journey.
In this case, anywhere in the order summary, mini cart, or checkout form is best.
When you are happy with the settings, just click ‘Save Changes.’
Customizing the Order Bump Design
Now, let’s scroll back up to the ‘Design’ tab and start changing how the order bump looks.
First things first, you need to pick a skin for the order bump. To do that, click the ‘Choose Skin’ button below the order bump preview.
Next, a popup will appear with several skin options to choose from.
If there is a design you like, just tick the ‘Use this skin’ checkbox and hit the ‘Import’ button.
To edit the design further, go back to the Design tab.
After that, simply click ‘Edit Style’ below the order bump preview.
Some elements you can change on this page are the text colors, background color, toggle color, border, font size, price display, and box padding and width.
To finalize the design changes, click the ‘Save’ button on the top right corner. Then, click ‘X’ to return to the Design tab.
Now, you can edit the text content of the order bump.
In the ‘Title’ section, you can change the call-to-action text for the order bump.
FunnelKit has inserted some HTML code for the text colors in this field, so make sure not to completely replace the content with your own.
You can also keep the merge tag {{product_name}} to display the product name dynamically.
Below the Title is the ‘Description’ field. Feel free to use this space to briefly describe your offer.
For instance, if you want customers to upgrade to a longer subscription, then you can write, ‘Upgrade to our 6-month plan now and get unlimited access to exclusive content, ad-free browsing, and priority customer support.’
Additionally, you can use the following merge tags to make your order bump more informative and user-friendly:
{{product_short_description}} reuses your product’s short description.
{{subscription_summary}} reuses your subscription information details.
{{quantity_incrementer}} allows you to increase the number of order bump products.
{{variation_attribute_html}} displays variants of variable products.
The last setting allows you to choose an image to use in the order bump. You can use the product’s default image, upload a custom one, or not display an image at all.
Once you’ve chosen an image, you can edit its width and positioning. Then, click the ‘Save’ button to finalize all of the design changes.
Setting the Rules to Trigger the Order Bump
So far, we’ve configured the order bump products and design. Now, let’s set up the conditional logic that will make the order bump appear when a customer is checking out.
To do this, simply navigate to the ‘Rules’ tab from the previous tab. After that, click ‘Add Rules.’
You can set multiple rules to make the order bump appear during checkout. The rules can be based on the cart, customer, geography, date and time, and/or the type of checkout page you are using.
You can also combine multiple conditions in one rule using the ‘AND’ button.
In the example below, the order bump will only be triggered if the customer purchases more than 1 item quantity and they are buying a blouse.
Now, if you click the ‘OR’ button below a rule, you can choose for the order bump to appear with another, different condition.
For instance, you could set an ‘OR’ condition where the order bump appears if the customer is buying either a blouse or a jacket. This gives you the option to promote different items based on customer preferences.
Once you are happy with the order bump rules, simply click the ‘Save Changes’ button in the top right corner.
Setting the Priority to Trigger the Order Bump
The last step is to configure the order bump priority. This setting is useful if you are running multiple order bumps whose rules may overlap, and you need to decide which offer should appear first.
To modify the priority, go ahead and switch to the ‘Settings’ tab. Then, fill out a number in the ‘Set Priority’ field. Note that 1 is the highest, which means the order bump is more likely to appear than the other order bumps.
Once you are finished with this setting, click ‘Save Changes.’
You can now test your checkout process to see what the WooCommerce order bump looks like.
Here’s an example of how it looks on our demo website.
How to Optimize Your Order Bump and Get More Revenue
Now that you know how to create an order bump in WooCommerce, you might be wondering how to optimize the order bump and get more sales.
You will need to know your customer preferences and buying behaviors so that you can tailor your offers to match their needs. For example, if your audience often buys tech gadgets, then you can show compatible accessories as order bumps.
The best way to track customer behavior on your website is with an eCommerce analytics plugin. MonsterInsights allows you to connect your website with Google Analytics and see all your online store’s data within your WordPress dashboard.
For example, you can see your conversion rate, most popular products, average order value, and more.
Are you looking to increase your Google AdSense revenue?
Google AdSense is a great way to make money online from your WordPress website. You can skyrocket your AdSense revenue by placing ads in high-converting areas, selecting the right theme, and choosing the best plugins.
In this article, we will share tips on how to optimize your AdSense revenue in WordPress.
Here is a summary of all the topics we will cover in this post:
Google AdSense is an advertising network run by Google that allows bloggers and website owners to earn money by showing text, images, videos, and other interactive advertisements on their websites. These ads are targeted by site content and audience.
AdSense ads are cost-per-click (CPC), meaning you get paid every time an ad is clicked on your website. Showing these advertisements is a great way to make money online through your WordPress blog.
The amount you receive per click varies based on the ad content and user demographic. For example, traffic from tier-1 countries (US, UK, and Australia) usually gets a much higher CPC than tier-3 countries (Congo, Jamaica, and Sri Lanka).
Here are three factors that impact your overall AdSense revenue:
Ad size
Ad placement
Quality of traffic
Let’s take a look at which AdSense size and placements perform the best.
Best AdSense Ad Size and Placement
Google AdSense revenue depends on how your users interact with ads on your website. So, the strategic placement of ads is very important for increasing your AdSense revenue.
In our experience, the AdSense sizes that work best are:
336 x 280 (Large Rectangle)
300 x 250
728 x 90
160 x 600
Notice that these are fairly large ads and are more prominent by default. The areas where you would generally place them also have to be prominent.
The ideal ad placements are your site header, above the content, in-between content, and after-post content.
The general rule of thumb is to place at least one ad unit above the fold of your WordPress website. Above the fold is the area users see when they land on your website without scrolling.
When setting up Google AdSense, there are a few placement areas that you absolutely want to avoid at all costs because they can result in your account getting terminated:
Floating Scrolling Ads – Some publishers use floating sidebar widgets or floating footer bars to display ads that scroll with users. We’ve seen people getting their AdSense accounts banned for doing this, so we recommend against using this placement.
Popup Ads – We have also seen folks displaying their AdSense ads inside a lightbox popup. This is also against AdSense policies, and you should avoid this placement.
Ads above pagination – One of the best places to generate accidental clicks is above pagination. We have received a warning from Google in the past about this and made a quick change to prevent our account from being suspended.
Also, whatever you do, do not click on your own ads because that’s a surefire way to get your Google account banned.
Having that said, let’s take a look at the best Google AdSense plugins for WordPress that can help you increase your AdSense revenue.
Best Plugins for Managing and Inserting AdSense Ads in WordPress
The best way to manage ads in WordPress is by using an ad management plugin. These plugins allow you to insert and manage your ads from one spot without writing any code.
Additionally, many sites that use Google AdSense choose to use their ‘auto ads’ feature. This feature lets Google place the ads automatically on your site with no additional setup from you.
This works for some sites better than others, and if you don’t see the results you want from the auto ads, then here are some WordPress plugins to optimize your AdSense placements.
WPCode is the best custom code snippets plugin for WordPress. With it, you can insert ad code anywhere you want on your website. You won’t need to edit any of your theme’s files, and you will have complete control of the placement.
All you have to do is take the ad code from Google, create a new snippet, and insert it into a post or page using a shortcode. You can also schedule ads to show for a specific period of time, such as a limited-time promotion.
In addition, you can use WPCode to track your ad performance on other popular platforms like Facebook, TikTok, or Pinterest. The WPCode Conversion Pixels addon lets you add tracking pixels so that you can track events like product page views, when users add items to their carts, as well as checkouts and purchases to help improve your ad-spend ROI.
The free WPCode plugin comes with everything you need to display ads on your site. To unlock scheduled snippets, conversion pixels, and other powerful features, you will need to upgrade to the premium version.
AdSanity is a premium WordPress plugin that allows you to properly manage ads on your WordPress site.
It works with all advertising platforms, including Google AdSense. You can easily create and insert ads on your WordPress site and manage your ad units from your WordPress admin area.
You can create ad groups and display ads on a rotating basis. You can also display ads using drag-and-drop WordPress widgets.
Thrive Suite is one of the best WordPress plugins to optimize your website or blog for AdSense revenue. It’s a one-stop marketing solution with the right tools to set up your site from scratch.
The Thrive Suite includes Thrive Theme Builder, Thrive Leads, Thrive Optimize, Thrive Automator, and more. You can design custom landing pages and also use the space on your homepage to display your ads.
Some of these tools are built for niche sites like online courses, quizzes, eCommerce shops, bloggers, and affiliate marketers. And all of these tools can help optimize any of your sites for AdSense ads.
With the MonsterInsights Ads addon, you can set up AdSense tracking on your WordPress website in just a few clicks and see how people are interacting with your ads.
You will get insights to increase your AdSense revenue and find out which ads get the most clicks. The plugin also helps find the best position for placing ads on your site and boosts the click-through rate (CTR).
It also brings the most important analytics stats inside your WordPress dashboard so you can view how your site is performing at a glance and make data-driven decisions.
Divi by Elegant Themes is the best WordPress theme that’s optimized for Google AdSense. It offers thousands of page templates and customization options to place your AdSense ads.
The best thing about using Divi is that it offers a complete WordPress theme and visual page builder. You can customize and edit your theme by adding and removing elements using the drag and drop builder.
With Divi, you get hundreds of elements to add to your theme and over 2,200 page layouts. Besides that, there are multiple hover styles and effects, fonts and text styles, shape dividers, and more to customize your theme.
SeedProd is the best WordPress theme and website builder. It comes with over 300 theme template kits, including a layout built specifically to place AdSense ads on your site.
The theme builder is easy to use for beginners with drag and drop functionality. You can fully customize the position of your ads and also change the size.
Moreover, it has many other features that could help optimize your website. SeedProd also integrates with popular email marketing services that can let you build an email list to retain your website traffic.
Ad-Sense is a theme that’s designed and optimized for Google AdSense. It is one of the most ad-friendly themes on the market.
With Ad-Sense, you get different features like ad placement to put your ads in the navigation menu, header, site background, before and after content, and more.
The theme also lets you manage your ads, automatically detects ad blockers, and locks content for ad-block users. There are different predefined layouts to choose from, and you can customize them according to your needs.
MH Newsdesk is a fully mobile-friendly WordPress theme for magazines and news websites.
The main feature of MH Newsdesk is that it is a fully AdSense-optimized theme for WordPress. The theme comes with widget-ready areas, allowing you to place your ad widgets anywhere on your site.
The theme is SEO-optimized, and you won’t have to worry about slow performance. It also comes with Google fonts, so you can easily change the font of your text and headings.
News Portal is an excellent free WordPress theme for news, magazine, and blogging sites.
It comes with built-in space for AdSense ads in the top header area. This will display your ad on all pages and posts.
The theme has multiple color schemes that give you the choice to change the look of your website. It also provides different layout designs and custom widgets for additional customization.
Public Opinion is a premium WordPress magazine theme. It comes with a white background that highlights your content and your colorful AdSense ads.
The theme has a featured section to share your top articles on the homepage. It uses beautiful font styles and font types for the navigation menu, headers, text, and content.
Public Opinion is fully customizable using page builders like Elementor Pro. This page builder integration comes with custom blocks for images, videos, sections, buttons, and more.
Bonus: Ask Users to Disable Adblockers
Now that you understand how to optimize your WordPress site for AdSense ads, the only hurdle is adblockers.
What Is an Adblocker?
As the name suggests, an adblocker blocks ads for users so that they don’t see them when visiting your website. There are several browser addons and mobile apps that, when enabled, will detect and disable AdSense ads on websites and apps.
You may wonder why your ads are not creating your expected revenue. And the simple answer is that your site visitors have an adblocker enabled.
How to Disable Adblockers in WordPress
You can nicely ask your users to disable their adblockers by showing a modal popup with a custom message.
While this may not guarantee a quick boost in your AdSense revenue, it’s a step to ensure you are doing something about the adblockers.
The AdSanity plugin comes with an Ad Block Detection add-on. It lets you add and display a custom warning to users where you can ask them to disable their adblockers and continue to read your content.
We recommend you check out our complete guide on how to detect Adblock users in WordPress. It talks about different methods to get the adblockers disabled so that you can continue to make money online.
We hope this article helped you learn how to optimize your AdSense revenue in WordPress and boost your earnings. You can also check out our other WordPress guides that can further help you grow your site.
Best WordPress Guides for Growing Your AdSense Site
Do you want to convert visitors to your WooCommerce store into customers?
Bringing traffic to your WooCommerce store is only half the battle. The other half is to convert those visitors into paying customers. One of the ways you can optimize your online store is by using targeted messages and offering incentives to boost conversions.
In this article, we will show you how to easily convert WooCommerce visitors into customers.
Why Do You Need Conversion Optimization for Your WooCommerce Store?
Most eCommerce stores rely on search engines or paid advertising campaigns for traffic.
There are many other ways to get more traffic to your website. However, more than 75% of visitors who find your website through search engines will never find it again. Of the people who stick around, only a small percentage of them will add products to their carts.
In the end, more than 69% of shopping carts are abandoned without making a purchase. Shipping costs, a complicated checkout experience, and bad design are among the top reasons for abandoned carts.
Considering these statistics, your WooCommerce store will continue losing potential sales if you don’t work on converting those visitors into customers.
How Do You Convert Visitors Into Customers?
The process and technique that is used to convert visitors into customers is called conversion rate optimization (CRO). Marketers and usability experts use CRO to successfully drive visitors to become customers.
Basically, you remove obstacles that affect a user’s experience on your WordPress website. You also provide incentives that convince users to buy.
Lastly, if a user must leave without making a purchase, then your goal is to try and get their information through lead generation. This allows you to communicate with them via email and offer personalized messages, special discounts, or new product announcements.
In the early days of eCommerce, you needed programming skills to work on all these tasks, but not anymore. Now, you have tools that make it extremely easy to do all these things without writing code or acquiring any new technical skills.
That being said, let’s take a look at different ways you can convert WooCommerce visitors into customers.
1. Offer Discount Coupons and Free Shipping
One of the easiest ways of converting visitors into customers is by offering incentives like discounts and free shipping.
They also help convert abandoning visitors and reduce abandoned carts. For instance, if a visitor is about to exit your online store without checking out, then you can show a popup with a discount coupon.
The best way to show discounts, flash sales, free shipping, and other offers is by using OptinMonster. It is the best conversion optimization and lead generation software.
OptinMonster lets you create different campaigns for your WooCommerce store, including popups, slide-in scroll boxes, floating bars, countdown timers, sidebar forms, and in-line forms.
Besides that, it offers powerful display rules to show the campaign to the right person at the right time.
For instance, it allows eCommerce targeting, where you can show your campaigns based on cart total, specific product pages, how long a customer has spent in your online store, and more.
You can also create a spin-to-win campaign to offer discount coupons and free shipping to users. This helps create engagement and is a fun way to boost conversions.
2. Promote Products That Your Audience Prefers
Another way to get more conversions in your WooCommerce store is by figuring out which products your audience likes the most and then promoting them. This way, you can improve the visibility of top-selling products and boost conversions.
MonsterInsights lets you set up eCommerce tracking, which helps record conversions, revenue, and user behavior in your WooCommerce store. It also offers eCommerce reports, so you can easily view top products inside your WordPress dashboard.
Once you know which products your audience prefers, the next step is to promote them in your WooCommerce store.
A simple way to do that is by improving their visibility so users can easily find and purchase them. For example, you can show top-selling products under other items, in the sidebar, or within your content.
With MonsterInsights, you can easily show top products across your website. It offers a Popular Products feature that lets you add products at the end of a blog post to boost conversions.
You can also create high-converting sales pages to promote different products and boost conversions in your WooCommerce store.
A sales page has a single purpose, which is to get people to buy your products or services. A high-converting sales page will have clear call-to-action (CTA) buttons, engaging product images, and other details to help users buy the product.
You can easily create high-converting sales pages for WooCommerce using SeedProd. It is the best WordPress page builder that lets you create custom landing pages without editing code.
SeedProd offers 300+ prebuilt templates, multiple customization options, a drag-and-drop page builder, and more. It also integrates with email marketing tools and other third-party tools.
Did you know that email lists get 10 times higher conversions than social media campaigns?
Building an email list for your WooCommerce store can help improve your revenue. You can tell your subscribers about the latest products, promotional sales, upcoming campaigns, and more.
You can also send targeted emails to specific subscribers. For example, if you are launching a new product in a specific location, then you can send out an email campaign for subscribers from that particular country.
To get started, you will need an email marketing tool like Constant Contact. It is very easy to use, and you can easily collect email addresses, manage them, and segment them into different groups. Plus, it helps you set up automated drip notifications and other email campaigns.
Once you’ve started collecting emails, you can take things one step further and try different ways to grow your email list.
For example, you can offer discounts, giveaways, and other incentives to customers in exchange for their email. You can see our complete guide to uncover more ways to grow your email list.
5. Leverage Social Proof to Boost Conversions
Another simple hack for converting WooCommerce visitors into customers is by showing social proof.
People feel more comfortable with their buying decisions when they know others have also bought the same product and had a great experience.
There are different ways to show social proof on your WooCommerce store. For instance, you can use TrustPulse to display real-time user activity notifications, such as the latest product purchase.
Besides that, you can also show testimonials and customer reviews on the product page to boost social proof.
They can help you gain trust from your visitors and encourage them to purchase the product.
Another way to boost conversions in WooCommerce stores is by using FOMO or fear of missing out. You can add a countdown timer to a discount campaign and encourage users to make a purchase before time runs out.
6. Run a Giveaway Contest
If you are looking for a way to boost engagement on your website and increase eCommerce conversions, then running a viral giveaway contest is a great way of doing it.
A competition gives your WooCommerce visitors a fun reason to return to your store and stand a chance to win free products.
In return, you can ask users to participate in the competition by following your social media pages, signing up for an email newsletter, inviting a friend to participate, and more.
This way, you’ll also grow your social followers, increase your email list, promote your brand, and build a relationship with your audience.
The best way to run a giveaway contest is by using RafflePress. It is the best giveaway plugin for WordPress that’s easy to use. RafflePress offers a drag-and-drop contest builder with lots of customization options.
Upselling is a technique that encourages visitors to purchase a higher-priced product instead of the one they already have in their shopping cart.
These products might have a higher value, offer more features, or have better quality. As a result, they are also more expensive and more lucrative for your business.
For instance, let’s say you are selling plugins or software in your online store. You can offer users a higher pricing plan with more addons and upgrades than the base plan.
There are several ways you can upsell products in WooCommerce. First, you can show different products on a product page at the bottom and ask visitors to buy them instead. Or you can create a popup to upsell particular products.
Besides that, you can also showcase different products on the checkout page before a user makes a purchase. Or you might promote products on the thank you page, enticing a customer to buy more items.
Another simple method for boosting conversions in your WooCommerce store is offering express checkout buttons. This allows users to skip different steps in the checkout process and go directly to the payment page.
This provides a better shopping experience for customers and makes the buying process quicker. A user can simply click a button to make a purchase. As a result, you’ll see more conversions and less cart abandonment.
Personalization helps you improve the user experience by making your content more personal for each visitor. You can create product offerings for different users to boost WooCommerce conversions.
For example, you might greet logged-in customers with their names, show them products based on their browsing history, and offer them discounts or coupons.
