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11. March 2019 by Claudia Rothenhorst

What You Need to Know About WordPress Plugins

What is a WordPress PlugIn?
When you want to create a website for your business, WordPress might be the best option. Tons of businesses today use WordPress to create and maintain their website. While WordPress does provide a ton of features already, there is a lot more businesses can do with their website if they install WordPress plugins. They add more functionality to the website, can help turn the website into an e-commerce store, and can help you monitor your website’s performance.

What Are WordPress Plugins?

All websites are made up of pieces of code that work together to make the website look good and function well. Even website builders that allow you to drag and drop different components onto the website are made up of code, it’s just not necessary to know how to code to create these websites.

WordPress plugins are pieces of code that can be installed in WordPress to add to your website. They can make minor or major changes or can simply work behind the scenes to give you more information that can be used to improve your website or how your visitors experience your website.

With WordPress Plugins, you don't need programming skills to customize your site.
With WordPress Plugins, you don’t need programming skills to customize your site.

These plugins are intended to make it easier for you to customize your website and add any functions you need. It allows you to do a lot more with your website without needing to learn how to code to completely create your website from the ground up and enables you to add to your website easily. You won’t have to spend hours adding a small feature to your website when you can spend just a few minutes to install and set up a plugin that does what you want.

How Do Plugins Work and What Do They Do?

Most plugins are simple to use. You’ll choose the plugin you want to try, install the plugin, then configure the plugin to ensure it does exactly what you want it to do. Most plugins will have directions to help with the installation and so you can learn how to use it. These plugins can be used to improve the website or add functionality to the website. Plugins are available to help add social networking features to your website, create a forum your customers can use, or allow you to sell products through your website. They can also be used to make your website load faster, to track the performance of your website, or to help optimize your website so it ranks higher in the search engine results.

Potential Issues to be Aware Of

A good WordPress PlugIn will fit right into your site.

There’s a lot you can do with WordPress plugins, but it is important to be careful with which ones you’ll use. While you really can’t have too many plugins, start slow so you can learn what each one does and make sure it works properly for your website before adding more. Potential issues you could face include errors on your site because the plugin is not compatible with features of your website, security risks that could make it easier for hackers to access your website or issues with the speed of your website. Whenever you’re looking for a plugin to try, make sure it’s a widely used plugin and check to make sure it was updated recently. This may help you avoid trying a plugin that’s going to damage your website or cause security risks.

Most Popular Plugins Available Today

The right plugin for your website is one that allows you to add the functionality you need. Three of the most popular WordPress plugins today are WooCommerce, WordFence Security, and WP Super Cache. WooCommerce is used to turn a website into an e-commerce website so you can sell products online. WordFence Security adds a number of security features to protect your website. This plugin gives you protection against a number of different potential attacks. WP Super Cache gives you access to a number of options that can help you boost the speed of your website. Since website speed is crucial today, this one is a plugin you might want to try right away to make sure your website loads as fast as possible.

Your website can do a lot more with the right WordPress plugins. They’re easy to use, so you can try out a variety of different plugins and find out which ones are going to work best for you. Learn more about WordPress plugins and try one today to see how much it can improve your website.

Filed Under: Allgemein Tagged With: E-Commerce, Online-Marketing, Pagespeed, plugins, WooCommerce, Wordpress

9. October 2018 by Claudia Rothenhorst

Online Marketing BuzzWords: Freemium

Freemium is a business model in which the base product is offered for free, while the full product and extensions are chargeable. In the case of computer games, it is known as “Free To Play“.

Definition of Freemium

Freemium is an artificial mix of the two words “free” and “premium” and describes a kind of online services where the basic features are available for free. Any additional content or features, which go beyond that basic functionality, are charged. Freemium is a business model that aims to attract customers by first attracting them to a platform through free services and then offering them premium services that contain more functionality and have to be paid for.

Origin of freemium models

Since the commercialization of the Internet in the mid-1990s, the Freemium business model has been a common way of gaining revenue from essentially freely available online services. Early examples are Netscape Communications or in Germany WEB.de. For software products, an analog model is even older and is now very prominent: Adobe Systems Inc. with the free Acrobat Reader to read PDF files. A creation of PDF files is not possible with the software. For this purpose the company offers the paid program Adobe Acrobat.

A large number of services like apps are offered with a Freemium model

Nowadays many services like Pandora, Evernote, Mailchimp, Xing, Spotify, Flickr or Skype use this model. For the most part, the additional paid content addresses fixed root users who are already intensively using the basic offer. The proportion of users willing to pay is usually very low.

Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson described the Freemium model on March 23, 2006 as follows: “Offer your service for free, possibly with commercials or maybe not, effectively win many customers through word of mouth, affiliate, search engine placement, and so on, and then offer additional services or an enhanced version of your service to your customer base for an additional charge. ”

The difference between free and Freemium Software

In general, there hast to be a differentiation between free and fully functioning software on the one hand and free but limitedly usable software on the other. While users of free software receive the complete product, including the rights to view and change the source code, with the Freemium version they only receive an excerpt from the range of services offered by the software and services and never have any rights whatsoever, for example to change the source code or just to see it. The differences between free basic version and paid premium version vary by product.

Area of application

Email-Provider

Some E-mail account providers are building their business model based on the freemium principle on the Internet. They offer free registration of e-mail addresses. The free offer, however, includes only limited storage space. If the user wants to increase his storage volume, he has to pay for it.

Online games are often used as Freemium version

Games

The Freemium model is increasingly being used in games where you can buy comfort features, benefits or additional content.

Software

  • Features: Basic and Premium versions differ in functionality. An example of this is Skype. In the free version, among other group video calls are not available.
  • Capacity: The full functionality is initially available in the basic version. During use, the usage (eg duration, bandwidth, file size) is measured. After reaching the volume limit, the product can only be used to a limited extent. An example of this is the SQL Server Express. In the Freemium version, the size of databases is limited to 10 GB.
  • Customer group: The full product is offered free of charge to certain customer groups. An example of this is the Dreamspark model from Microsoft. Selected student groups are offered the software for free.

Hardware

To sell Hardware, the Freemium business model is also used. The provider publishes plans, parts lists and tutorials free of charge, often as free hardware, with the aim of creating an online community that in turn contributes to improving the product (crowdsourcing). Once the necessary attention and needs have been created, the supplier offers kits or finished products based on them. The target group are customers who do not have the time or skill to assemble the product themselves, but want to own it and are prepared to pay for it. Chris Anderson follows this business model with his company DIY Drones and describes it in his book “Free”.

Books

Books are also offered as freemium products. The basic product is the electronic version (audiobook, e-book, website); the bound book represents the premium product. The already mentioned book “Free” by Chris Anderson was marketed in this way. Daniel Shiffman published 2012 “The Nature of Code” as a hardcover book. The e-book can be downloaded for a selectable price between 0 and 50 $ (Pay-What-You-Want). The electronic version in HTML including all sample programs are available online for free. Shiffman funded the initial investment in 2011 through the crowdsourcing platform Kickstarter.com.

Journals & Newspapers

In December 2013, the Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers (BDZV) announced that meanwhile 70 newspaper titles in Germany had set up paid content models on their websites. 71 percent of the newspapers rely on the freemium version. Here, the editors decide which content is free and which are made available for a fee. Alternative payment models are the metered model, where a certain number of posts per month can be read for free. All further calls for contributions are subject to a charge.

The Freemium model and Advertising

There are services provided- especially in the are of online games – in which the basic product already offers the complete functionality and is financed by advertising. Users can turn off the impressions for a fee. Even with mobile services for smartphones and tablets, app providers build their business model through in-app purchases on the Freemium model.

Conclusion

The sometimes painful restrictions of the cost free, but not freely usable software has led to terms such as “Expireware”. In contrast to software products, where this model has a negative connotation due to the often unusable software, Internet services on the Freemium model are useful in private or small business environment.

 

Filed Under: E-Commerce, Online-Marketing, Web Tagged With: E-Commerce, eCommerce, Marketing, Marketing Buzz Words, Online-Marketing, Services, Software, Web

23. July 2018 by Janina Winkler

Online Marketing BuzzWords: Micro-Moments

Online marketing buzz words micro moments
When the internet became part of our daily lives and Google became a search market leader, consumers changed the way they made buying decisions. After all, a quick trip into a local mall or shopping center is enough to see how online shopping has affected the retail environment.

More changes are coming, and in this blogpost, you’ll learn how smartphone dependency and consumer intent are once again changing the marketing landscape.

How Consumers’ Journeys Have Changed

Previously, when someone wanted to make a significant purchase, they may have taken several days to research before making a decision. This process, being relatively static, took substantial determination and organization, but today’s consumer journey is different.

It consists of multiple decision-making points, and, for marketers, it’s about being in the right place at the right time, with the right content for the user. These intent-driven, real-time points are a crucial way to increase leads and build sales.

What Is a Micro-Moment?

what are micro momentsA micro-moment is a time in a person’s life where they quickly look something up and make a snap decision based on the information they find. If your company’s site pops up at the right moment and gives a buyer what they want, your brand has performed a successful customer engagement. Maybe they’ll bookmark your page for later, send a link in a text message, or watch a video.

Websites are seeing more mobile sessions, but they’re becoming shorter. As a business owner, it’s your job to anticipate visitors and be there when they need products or information. While it’s easy to stuff a site with keywords to give it the appearance of value, that’s not enough.

To succeed, your site must be valuable and useful at the right moment to meet the customer’s needs. Mobile device users are busy, and they need service right away. When your checkout process is fast and easy, it’s easy to give buyers what they want. Buyers’ methods have changed, and as an online marketer, it’s important to keep pace with those changes.

What You’ll Need to Capitalize on Micro-Moments

Successful marketers cover all their bases. To succeed, you may need:

  • A site with unbiased reviews
  • A popular channel on YouTube
  • Online how-tos
  • Product pages

Obviously, each of your products will need to look at micro-moments and consumer intent differently. You’ll need to anticipate customers’ thought processes; it’s all about thinking ahead. People won’t stick to a single platform when performing due diligence. They may look something up on a phone, move to a tablet, and complete the process on a work computer.

Consider that carefully, and ensure that your site helps them by easing the transition between platforms or staying at the top of the SERPs.

If you want to learn more about Online Marketing Buzz Words, make sure to check out our other articles!

Filed Under: Conversion Rate, E-Commerce Tagged With: E-Commerce, Marketing Buzz Words, Micro Moment, Micro Moments, Mobile, Online

9. July 2018 by Katharina Berger

Boost Your Visibility When Selling Products on eBay

Selling products on ebayYour business needs new customers. Where do you find them? You may want to try using eBay to find new customers who are looking for your products. Selling products on eBay gives you the chance to sell excess inventory as well as the chance to extend your outreach so you can sell your products to as many potential customers as possible.

Once you’ve decided to sell your products on eBay, you’ll need to make sure your business is as visible as possible. Right now, there are an estimated 25 million sellers on eBay, which is a huge amount of competition. Yet, this doesn’t mean you can’t sell products on eBay. You just need to make sure you use the right techniques to boost your visibility so more potential customers will see your business and make a purchase.

Posting items on eBay is relatively simple, but you won’t want to stop there. You’ll want to read through the list below to learn more about what you should watch out for when you’re placing products on eBay to sell and what you should do to improve the ranking of your products.

Watch Out for Formatting Errors or Store that Isn’t Unique

Poor formatting can lead to customers backing out of your eBay store page and looking elsewhere for what they want. A store that’s not unique is not going to stand out very well and many customers might not notice it at all.

Your eBay store is a representation of your business. You need it to stand out, but you do need to make sure everything is formatted properly. Test the appearance of your store on multiple devices to get an idea of how it looks and make sure nothing looks “funny” or out of place.

Watch Out for Poor Listings

Titles and subtitles that have symbols or weird spellings, or that simply say “Look!” are not attractive to potential buyers. In fact, most buyers will skip over these listings because they don’t tell the buyer what the listing is actually for or they’re too difficult to read.

Instead, carefully construct titles, subtitles, and descriptions for every listing. Using SEO techniques in each of these fields can be beneficial, but you will still want to make sure they’re attractive to the buyer. They shouldn’t notice keyword stuffing throughout the description or have to wonder what exactly the product is because there’s just a list of generic keywords in the title.

Watch Out for Spelling Mistakes and Other Errors

Spelling mistakes can drive customers away and can lower the visibility of your eBay store simply because you don’t have any customers. Many customers won’t want to purchase anything from a shop that has multiple spelling or grammar errors in their descriptions.

Run every title, subtitle, and description through a grammar checking app or program before publishing it in the listing. Even if you don’t catch every single thing, minimizing spelling and grammar mistakes can help boost your chance of a customer purchasing your product.

Watch Out for Multiple Item Listings

Multiple item listings look like a great idea. You get to create one listing and have multiple products for sale in it. However, this isn’t as good of an idea as you might think. In fact, it could lower the visibility of your listings on eBay.

Each listing has a spot in the search results. When you combine listings into a multiple-item listing, you have one listing show up in the search results. If you’re selling 20 of the same item, you want it to show up 20 times, not once. Have each product listed separately so they’ll show up separately in the search results. The more it shows up in the search results, the more likely it is customers will see your items, not your competitor’s.

Watch Out for High Shipping Prices

It’s easy to pass the shipping price onto the customer when you sell items on eBay. You can price your products much lower this way, so it might seem like this would be a good idea.

Save money thanks to free shipping.
Customers love to save money and get something for free.

Unfortunately, when you pass the shipping price onto the customer, it can lead to your listings being ranked lower.

Listings that include free shipping, even though the item price may be a little higher, can boost the ranking for your listings. Plus, customers love to get things for free. Even though they may pay a little bit more for the product, the free shipping can make your listing more attractive. The more attractive it is, the higher it’s going to rank and the more likely it is the product will sell.

Do Use Keywords Throughout Store and Listings

Although you should be careful to avoid keyword stuffing, you will want to use keywords throughout your store and your listings. This is the main component of search engine optimization and one you’ll want to use correctly. All parts of your store, such as the seller bio, should be filled out with carefully-chosen keywords to help optimize your eBay store for the searches.

Make sure you use short and long-tail keywords, and make sure you choose keywords that customers are using to find products like the ones you sell. All keywords should be relevant and placed in the content naturally.

Do Use Photos in Listings

Photos do more than just show buyers what your product looks like. You can also use alt tags with keywords for each photo you upload for your product. The alt tags allow the search engine to “read” the photos and know what they’re about. This is another way to use keywords in your store and help boost the store’s visibility in search results.

Do Use Adaptive Formatting for Your Listings

While you will want to make sure your store stands out, you’ll also want to make sure the formatting is adaptive. A recent study showed that mobile use was involved in more than 60% of eBay transactions.

Optimize your listings for mobile devices.

Whether it’s to view the listing initially, to make the purchase, or to check the listing, the buyer was on mobile at least once.

When you carefully format your listings so they can be viewed on mobile devices, you’re making it easier for buyers to see what your product offers and why they will want it. You’re also making it easier for them to make a quick decision to purchase the products and, the more sales you have, the higher your ranking will be.

Do Provide as Much Information as Possible About Your Products

You’re trying to sell your products, so you need to tell customers why they need these products. You want them to be excited about purchasing it so they don’t hesitate and end up choosing something else. Putting as much information as possible in the description gives you the chance to get customers excited about purchasing the product and shows them why they need to purchase it.

Choosing the words for the description carefully is vital. You’ll want to insert keywords, but make sure you’re not using too many. You’ll also want to make the description as educational as possible as this can help boost your ranking as much as the keywords will. The better your description, the more likely it is the viewer will purchase the product.

Do Respond to Customers Quickly

How customers view your business is crucial. If your customers aren’t happy, your rankings will drop. A large part of optimizing your eBay store is making sure your customers are happy so you’ll have a higher seller rating. One of the parts of the seller rating you can directly impact is how fast you respond to your customers.

Have a way to check your eBay messages often so you can respond to any questions or comments as quickly as possible. Customers expect a fast response nowadays. The faster you can respond, the happier they’ll be with their interaction with you and the higher your seller rating will be.

Do Provide Tracking Information for Your Products

Products being delivered late can negatively impact your seller rating quickly and drastically. You can add tracking information when you ship your products to help avoid this and make sure you don’t suffer because of the delivery times.

If you do not provide a tracking number and the item does not arrive by the time you stated, the customer can complain about the late delivery and your seller rating will decrease. However, if you do provide eBay with a tracking number, it will show your product was shipped on time. This shows you did everything possible to get the product to the customer, so if it is delivered late because of the shipping company, it will not negatively impact your business.

 

Selling items on eBay, just like amazon, gives your business the chance to branch out and reach more customers. However, you will want to be careful to make sure your listings are attractive to potential buyers and properly optimized so your eBay store will stand out amongst the competition. Start working on this today to get the chance to reach more customers tomorrow.

Filed Under: E-Commerce, Online-Marketing Tagged With: E-Commerce, Ebay, Online Shop

20. February 2017 by Janina Winkler

Tips for Setting up a Successful WordPress Shop

The idea of starting an E-Commerce site can be very intimidating even for an experienced WordPress user or entrepreneur. There are many options for creating and operating a successful store, and the number of choices can be a problem in itself. On one hand, the freedom is great but, on the other hand, the options can quickly become overwhelming.

This article assumes the business owner has already chosen to use WP as the store’s platform and that they have products to sell. However, even with these factors handled, there are still many decisions to make and strategies to use. If someone is new to e-commerce and online selling, this article will put them closer to their goal of running a successful WordPress Shop. In the sections below, new online business owners will get some valuable tips on starting an e-commerce site.

What the Owner Needs to Get Things Started

As with other WP websites, to get started, the owner needs to choose a suitable domain name and a good web host. While most people assume this step is simple, they can be complex for those who are doing it for the first time. The site’s URL can potentially make or break the entire project. That means it’s important to give thought to how the name sounds. For instance, seemingly innocuous words such as “pen” and “island” can have a completely different connotation when read and pronounced together in a website address. There are many in-depth guides on choosing a suitable domain name for a website, which can be beneficial for those starting their first e-commerce site.

Choosing the Right Web Hosting Company for Online Selling

how to run a successful wordpress shopAs mentioned above, one must choose a web host along with the right domain name before they can get a site or store online. As online sellers deal with customers’ sensitive payment data and personal information, it is important to choose a web host with a focus on security and online privacy. Furthermore, as a slow-loading site can drive customers away and reduce the rate of conversion, a site owner should choose a host with fast load times if they want to generate sales as quickly as possible.

To help the site owner with this very important decision, there are many online guides to choosing a web hosting company for a startup business.

While it is possible to sign up for shared hosting services for just a few dollars per month, those who are serious about the success of their store and the security of customers’ data may find shared hosting to be a poor choice. However, the industry is full of high-quality, high-value web hosts, and there’s bound to be one out there that’s perfect for any company. Most of the best web hosting companies will handle the installation of WP on a website, which makes it even easier on a beginning business owner. Now that the owner has registered his or her domain name, chosen a web hosting company and installed WP, it is time to start laying the foundation for a successful e-commerce website.

The Basics of a Successful WordPress Shop

To be successful and long-lasting, an online store must offer three primary functions: the ability for a shopper to browse a selection of products, a way for shoppers to choose products and add them to a virtual shopping cart, and a way to collect customers’ payment information. Of course, a lot more goes into a functional online store than these three factors, but they’re a great place to start. Fortunately, WP makes it easy and seamless to enable these core elements and get a store online quickly.

Creating Individual Product Pages

The beginning of building an online store is to set up a page for each product being sold. These product listings should include clear, high-resolution pictures and readable copy that tells customers the advantages of the products as well as their features. Instead of selling the steak, sell the sizzle!

Including a Virtual Shopping Cart and an Easy-to-Use Checkout System

After setting up product description pages, the site needs a shopping cart to allow customers to choose and assemble the products they’d like to buy. Finally, and importantly, the site needs a simple checkout system that can be used independently or integrated with an existing payment gateway. With this, customers can pay for their items in a completely secure environment.

Other important factors for site owners to consider are shipping, inventory management, returns and refunds, as well as customer service. It is important for the online shopping process to be as user-friendly and streamlined as possible. This helps the site owner ensure customers can easily complete their purchases and download or receive their goods.

Things to Think About

There are many things to consider and to implement on a fresh WP installation, and a new site owner may not be sure where to start. However, it’s important to remember one thing: WP is a powerful platform, and getting set up isn’t as difficult as one may think. With the right theme and some great plugins, anyone can run a successful online store.

More people are turning to online commerce as a side job or as a main source of income. While there are multiple ways to run a store on the Internet, WP provides one of the easiest and most effortless methods of site and inventory management. By considering the factors listed above, any seller can be an online success.

Filed Under: E-Commerce, Online-Marketing Tagged With: E-Commerce, Wordpress Shop

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