WP eCommerce Show

In episode 125, I brought in a heavy hitter when it comes to SEO, Rand Fishkin, co-founder of Moz and founder of Sparktoro. I wanted to look at both organic search and social when it comes to your online store. With Rand’s deep dive into data, he answered these questions.

• What does the data show us when it comes down organic search vs. social for conversions?
• Is social more effective as an impulse buy?
• What strengths does social add to bringing both customers and conversions to your online store?
• Can you give us your top tips for organic search vs. paid ads?
• How impactful is voice search going to be for the future of eCommerce?

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In this show I bring back eCommerce expert Chris Lema, VP of Product at Liquid Web, to chat about some of the best practices when it comes to optimizing your site speed on your WooCommerce online store. He shares with us:

• What is a cache and, from a store owners perspective, its pros and cons
• The silver bullet that is critical to speeding up your store.
• Chris’s suggestions of the top plugins for speed optimization.
• Other aspects of increasing the site speed of your online store
• What analytics a store owner should pay attention to and good tools to use

We start the show out reminiscing about our first experience with an eCommerce site. Then I ask Chris to define what a cache is and its role in site speed. We dive into it a bit more with the use of cache plugins and users’ common questions when they ask for help with their load speed. Chris shares his thoughts on that, as well as his reflections on some of the pros and cons.

Next I ask Chris to narrow down the most important solution for optimization of your online store. He talks about all the moving pieces that can be a huge part of it—themes, plugins, hosting, etc.— and shares with us what he feels is the single most critical piece to have in place.

I couldn’t let him get away without asking him to name his top, recommended plugins to use. He shared a few that he regularly suggests, which included the free plugin WPDisable, and the premium plugin perfmatters which does what the WPDisable covers but also has some other good options. He also recommends the free plugin Autoptimize, that essentially will work alongside your other optimization plugins. And lastly, he is a fan of Jetpack and the specific tools it can bring to the table.

He explained what they can do and also that if you use a plugin for a specific need, you should understand those needs and not just add a plugin hoping it will do the job for you.

I also asked Chris to share some suggestions beyond the performance side of things. He recommended Elastic Search and a few other products to consider. He also stressed how critical it is to make that checkout experience easy and seamless. One of the plugins he mentioned was Handsome Checkout. and why this plugin does such a good job when it comes to checkout. We have a post here that will walk you through this plugin.

My last question for Chris was this: what should we look for in our analytics and what tools should we use? He shared a great idea for the loading of testing and the tool they use at Liquid Web, Load Impact.

Chris rounded off the podcast with some excellent final thoughts and shared what they are doing over at Liquid Web when it comes to WooCommerce Managed Hosting. You can find him there of course, but you can also find him over on his two sites, Leadership Notes and his b

A WooCommerce store builder can range from a single person creating their first online shop to  developers building out sites for their clients. It’s a broad area, but there is a lot of cross-over with all WooCommerce store builders when it comes learning and understanding each aspect of moving into this space.

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The market is saturated with SEO experts. Have you ever wondered how they focused down on one specific specialty, how they found their sweet spot? Listen in as John Locke shares how and why he chose to offer his expertise to manufacturers and what he has learned about this niche.

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There are so many ways you communicate with your customers. We still use email for our sites and online stores, chat has evolved over the years, and lurking behind the next corner is AI.

And then there is texting.

In today’s show I had the chance to chat with Ian Li from Zipwhip. Our topic?  Texting. And what fascinated me is that this is a medium we are already comfortable with. We use it day in and day out on mobile. In fact, it’s a form of communication we use a lot. For many people, it’s the easiest way to communicate with others. And studies find that in a lot of cases, it’s the least obtrusive. And it’s faster for both the consumer and the business.

Listen in as we talk about this medium and how it may be the piece missing in your online sales strategy.

What’s the thought process when making the decision to purchase someone else’s WordPress premium plugin instead of building one yourself? Well, Scott shares with us his own experience of recently having acquired an already existing plugin.

If you have ever wondered  what you should consider when purchasing a WordPress plugin, learn from someone who has gone through it.

Scott DeLuzio has created several WordPress plugins that he has sold and marketed. But this time around, when he saw Pippin Williamson selling one of his plugins, the tables turned and he chose to go that route.

In a recent post on his site, he shared some insights, but I thought it would be interesting to dive into this even more. The conversation started with asking Scott if was actively seeking a plugin to purchase, or whether he made the decision when the opportunity came up?

I asked Scott if he had his own checklist of factors to consider after he encountered an opportunity to purchase the plugin. Obviously, knowing Pippin’s reputation, he felt sure that he was getting a quality plugin, but he still had a list of things he wanted to verify.

Another issue we touched on was the importance of getting what you need from the developer. This information can be based on several factors, including concerns that come up via support. I asked Scott about the wisdom of assuming that you will get that information vs confirming it will be available to you as a buyer.

I posed another question: Since was purchasing a plugin from a developer who has a very established and reputable spot in the WordPress space, was there any nervousness about being able to satisfy customer expectations?  In other words, was there a little more pressure because he purchased the plugin from Pippin?

Lastly, Scott talked about the plugin, which is called Full Screen Background Images. It’s an interesting plugin that I know, from having worked with many WordPress users over the years, makes life easier when their own theme doesn’t have this integration. You will learn more about the plugin and hear Scott answer a question about  how the plugin handles large-sized files.

ScottDeLuzio.com

@scottdeluzio on Twitter

Full Screen Background Images Plugin

Conditional Checkout Fields for WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads

WP 1099 Plugin

WP CRM System Plugin

I’m sure you have heard of the importance of inbound marketing. Whether you run a blog, business site or online store, there are benefits to using the strategies behind the concept.

For your online shop, inbound marketing can be a great way to increase your revenues.

To talk about the broader strategies, I asked my friend Mario Peshev to join us. His walks the talk and is also certified through Hubspot. I can safely say he really knows what he is talking about.

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Food blogs. You gotta love ’em.

In fact you may thinking of starting one yourself. It might be for several different reasons. But likely the big one?  It’s because you have a passion for food and you just gotta share it. Whether it’s recipes or where to dine out, it’s in your blood.

There might come a time when you start thinking about monetizing your blog, getting a little something in return for all your hard work. You probably are wondering how to do that. Here on BobWP, we have numerous articles about monetizing, as well as on our podcast. But what about hearing it from someone who already has a food blog?

I invited my friend Shayda Torabi who, as a side gig, runs the blog Dine with Shayda. She describes her site:

Dine With Shayda is an Austin-based food and travel blog sharing my favorite places to visit, what to eat, and where to go when you get there.

Listen in as I chat about monetizing with Shayda:

Gutenberg. This isn’t the first post or podcast you have seen on it, nor will it be the last.

And unless you live deep in the woods, or are burrowed in some cave, likely you have heard something about this new WordPress editor that comes out in WordPress 5.0. Let’s just say this. I think it’s going to be great. (I guess that’s easy for me to say.)

Although you can see the post where I blindly step into the vortex of Gutenberg, I have purposely avoided diving into it.

What I want to get into today wasn’t just Gutenberg, but how it will play in the space with eCommerce and WordPress. So I invited Sir Morten Gutenberg (newly appointed name) to join me since he has immersed himself in the waters of Gutenberg since day one and has shared a lot of insights and thoughts via the web and in presentations. So sit back and enjoy the ride.

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