With the most advanced built-in features and an extensive range of third-party extensions and plugin collections, WooCommerce is undoubtedly the most powerful eCommerce platform.
It is no wonder WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform; more than 26% of the market leaders rely on it.
Its 5M+ active installations and near 2M+ domain count prove that both beginners and experts trust WooCommerce for their online shops.
However, running an online store is not just about installing the WooCommerce plugin and uploading some product images.
Did you know that 8 out of 10 online stores fail within the first two years of operation, and less than 20% succeed?
How well and how efficiently your WooCommerce website operates and your marketing efforts will determine the success of your business. This article will look into 10 Effective Ways To Grow Your WooCommerce Store.
Table of Contents
1. Optimize The Website
Website optimization should focus on three areas.
- Website speed optimization
- Website security optimization
- Website content optimization
Website Speed Optimization
47% of customers expect web pages to load in less than two seconds. If your website takes more than three seconds to load, 57% of visitors will leave.
Among the 57% of users who navigate away from your website, 80% will never come back. 44% of those customers who will never return will tell their friends about their negative experiences.
Therefore, you must optimize the speed of your online store to improve your WooCommerce store growth.
But how?
Let’s find out.
Optimize images
Optimizing images is one of the first and best tips for WooCommerce store growth any expert will recommend. 75% of online shoppers rely on product images when making purchasing decisions.
But what does optimizing images mean?
Image optimization means uploading high-quality, clearly visible, yet low-weighted images. Uploading heavy images will affect page loading, and your audience will have a bad experience and leave your website.
You can use an image compression plugin such as Smush or EWWW Image Optimizer, or you can first compress your images before uploading using sites like TinyPNG. Use a JPG or WebP format image unless your image has a transparent background.
You need to set a standard resolution for the images. A 1000-pixel or 500-px width is considered the standard size for WooCommerce product images. Therefore, don’t upload something that is, let’s say, 2400 px.
Resize the image first and then upload it. WordPress and image compression plugins do have auto-resize options. However, you should resize images before uploading them to save server space.
Lazy loading images
The more images you put on your product pages, the more it will help your customers understand your product.
Therefore, uploading multiple images showing different angles of a product is crucial to increase sales for WooCommerce stores.
However, the more images you put on a page, the heavier it gets, right?
The lazy loading method can save your day in this scenario.
With this feature, the images on a page won’t load until the user scrolls down to the area where they are displayed.
In other words, your audience won’t have to wait for your media to load before they can watch your content completely.
Lazy loading is now a built-in feature of WordPress and is also available in the plugins we mentioned above.
Enable caching
When customers browse your online shop, their web browser must download your site’s content (photos, videos, scripts, style sheets, etc.). Depending on the size of your site, this may take a while.
However, if you enable caching, their browser will store a copy of your site’s files, allowing it to load much more quickly the next time they visit.
No matter what type of WordPress website you have, you must always install and enable a caching plugin. Some of the most popular caching plugins are mentioned below.
- WP Rocket
- LiteSpeed Cache
- WP-Optimize
- W3 Total Cache
- WP Super Cache
- WP Fastest Cache
But you must contact your host first to confirm which server suits them best.
Increase memory limit
Your host caps the memory available to run your website. In some cases, however, that cap may be too low, as WordPress only allocates 32 MB of memory, and WooCommerce recommends a minimum of 128 MB.
Many hosting providers allow you to increase your memory limit within your control panel. If not, you can always contact your host directly.
Use CDN
A CDN is a system of interconnected servers located in various geographic locations. To alleviate server load, it fetches media files from your site and distributes them over its own network.
A CDN can significantly improve page loading speed and help increase WooCommerce store sales.
The solution is perfect for any shop but shines brightest when dealing with international customers. For instance, suppose your server is in London, and a user is in Malaysia; the site will likely load from the London location.
However, a content delivery network (CDN) loads your site from the geographically closest server to each customer.
Let’s say the CDN has a server in Singapore. Instead of loading from London, it will load from the Singapore server, which is closest to Malaysia.
This ensures that every user enjoys the fastest possible connection speeds.
Keep WordPress, themes, and plugins updated
Updates to the WordPress core, themes, or plugins typically include more than new features or security fixes. Thanks to their optimized code, your site’s speed will increase.
Always update when new versions become available. You can also enable automatic updates in your WordPress settings.
Limit plugin installations
Plugins truly set WordPress apart from the competition and explain why it has become so popular. Extensions can add a lot of features to the CMS, but it’s important not to overdo it.
If they clash, an overabundance of plugins can break a site’s functionality. Figuring out what’s causing these problems can be difficult and frustrating.
In addition, maintaining an ever-expanding collection of plugins becomes increasingly challenging as your site’s functionality expands. Not doing so may put your site at risk of being hacked.
Too many plugins can also negatively impact your site’s performance. They generate extra requests, which causes more server work. Inevitably, when a server is overloaded, performance suffers.
It is recommended that you avoid downloading any unnecessary add-ons. You should also review your current add-ons and disable any that you don’t plan on using shortly.
Choose A High-Quality Hosting Server
A reliable host will understand the specific requirements of a WooCommerce site and configure its servers to deliver optimal performance for your store.
A good service provider will also provide many options to explore and plenty of room to develop your needs.
Check user reviews and the features a host offers to find the best host for your WooCommerce store growth.
We recommend Cloudways, as it is one of the best web hostings for Woocommerce stores.
Choose A Reliable And Fast Theme
The more complicated a theme is, the more code it will install on your site, resulting in a slower load time. Having said that, you may need the extra features or design tools that come with a “heavy” theme, so don’t let that stop you from using one.
To balance your site’s needs and concerns for speed, many themes also allow you to turn off features you’re not using.
Try installing some themes and checking their speed with some demo pages to find the ones that can help you grow a WooCommerce store.
Website Security Optimization
As a store owner, you’ve put a lot of time and effort into your shop. It’s only fair that you safeguard your hard work. If security is breached, you could lose money, time, and reputation.
Here’s a checklist of tasks you must complete to ensure your WooCommerce store’s security.
- Choose a reputed and quality host
- Use well-coded plugins
- Apply strong passwords
- Prevent brute force attacks
- Enable backups
- Regularly update WordPress, themes, and plugins
- Add an SSL certificate
- Perform security scans
- Install secure payment gateways
- Set up a firewall
- Monitor site activity
- Enable secure authentication
Website Content Optimization
WooCommerce content optimization basically means optimizing your product description. You need to be honest about what you’re selling in the product descriptions you write.
If the details aren’t spot-on, potential buyers won’t have a clear image of what they’re getting into. A large number of returns could be the result of providing inaccurate information in the product description.
Customers’ online experiences with your products are heavily influenced by their emotions. Therefore, product descriptions need to appeal to the buyer on a personal and emotional level to drive sales and ensure the growth of your WooCommerce store.
2. Offer Coupons And Discounts
When making an online purchase, 92% of consumers look for discounts or coupon codes, and 90% of those who find them end up using them. Therefore, offering discounts is one of the best WooCommerce growth strategies you can apply.
Offering discounts in your WooCommerce store will increase sales and conversions. WooCommerce allows you to create various coupons/discounts to grow your business.
Some of the discount types are as follows.
- Percentage discount
- Fixed cart discount
- Signup fee discount
- Fixed product discount
- Signup fee percentage discount
- Recurring product discount
- Recurring percentage discount
3. Product Feed Marketing
Product feed marketing is one of the most effective and unique ways to grow a WooCommerce store. Most startups and even some regular eCommerce store owners are unaware of this great marketing method.
But what is product feed marketing?
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of marketplaces online, such as Amazon, eBay, Rakuten, Aliexpress, etc., hundreds of price comparison sites, such as Google Shopping, PriceSpy, Idealo, etc., and social media platforms where any seller can list their products to reach a broader audience.
92% of US customers buy things from online marketplaces, and in 2020, sales on the top 100 online marketplaces made up 62.7% of all internet sales.
Listing your products in these channels allows you to reach millions of potential buyers and directly compete with your rivals.
However, creating and listing products one by one manually and uploading them to those channels will be a big hassle and time-consuming as well. And this is where a product feed can help you immensely.
A product feed is a CSV/XML/TXT file that contains all the information about your products, including your product title, description, price, category, image link, etc.
When you upload such a file to the marketplaces, they fetch the data from the product feed, list it, and display it on their product pages.
You can create product feed files for hundreds of channels right from your WordPress admin panel with the help of a free plugin called CTX Feed.
Not only that, but you can also update your product information from your admin panel, and the plugin will automatically update that data across all channels.
This will save you a lot of time and help you significantly grow your WooCommerce store. Let’s quickly review how to create a feed.
How To Create And Upload A Feed?
After installing the CTX feed plugin, you can scroll down to the CTX feed menu and click the Make a Feed option.
It will take you to the feed creation window. From the Template dropdown field, you can select your channel. The plugin has pre-made templates for 130+ channels.
After you select any channel, the plugin will automatically populate the required attributes for that channel and fetch your product information according to the attributes. All you need to do is click on the Generate Feed button.
After that, you can either download the file or copy the feed URL and upload it to the channel from your existing product feed list.
When you upload using the HTTPS/URL method (all marketing channels support this option), any product data changes you make inside your WooCommerce back panel will be updated across all those channels through this feed file.
The pro version of the plugin offers more advanced filtering features for store owners.
4. Apply Personalization
Even if you don’t know what personalization is, we are sure you have already experienced it.
Did it ever happen that the exact things/products/services you were looking for magically popped up on your screen on Facebook, Google, YouTube, or elsewhere on the internet you were browsing?
This is because of personalization. The Internet tracks your online activity, browsing history, location, device, and intents and preferences.
All data are collected so that search engines and websites can show you the exact data/ads you want to see.
In terms of eCommerce, personalization is the practice of reading your customers’ behavior and displaying the products they would want to buy.
72% of your customers expect a personalized experience on your store, and personalization can increase your WooCommerce store growth by 40%.
So, how do you personalize your customer’s experience?
Here are some of the personalization elements you can use.
Product Recommendations
This is a common practice where you display related products at the bottom or side of the product pages.
To grab the attention of your customers, you can use different titles for the related product section, such as viewers also viewed, trending items handpicked for you, Visitors who bought this also bought, etc.
Upsell, Cross-Sell, & Down-Sell At (& After) Checkout
Targeted upsells, cross-sells, and down-sells are a tried and tested method for increasing eCommerce sales through personalization.
The three methods are quite similar to one another, but they employ slightly different approaches to increasing your customers’ average order value (AOV):
Upsell—Upsell recommendations are when you suggest products to your customers that are more expensive than the ones they have already purchased or have in their shopping carts.
Cross-selling – Cross-selling is the practice of offering similar products to those a shopper is already perusing (or has purchased in the past), regardless of price.
Downsell—Downselling suggests products to your customers that are cheaper than the ones they have already purchased or have in their shopping carts.
Personalized Geo-Location Targeting
Geolocation-based redirection improves the user experience by sending visitors directly to the relevant pages. Location-based segmentation can further target customers, helping you provide them with relevant offers.
Several personalization plugins are available for you to apply everything we mentioned above in your store.
We recommend installing any AI-powered personalization plugin that automatically reads customer behavior and recommends related, upsell, and cross-sell products.
5. Email Marketing
If done right, email marketing is one of the most effective strategies for WooCommerce store growth.
Research suggests that between 79 and 90 percent of your recipients will actually read your email. The typical percentage of recipients opening an email is between 30 and 40 percent.
Most importantly, 4.24% of people who click on an email marketing ad buy something. That’s over seven times the conversion rate of social media users and nearly double the rate of visitors from search.
With the WooCommerce core plugin and any email extension, you can create and automate the sending of emails such as welcome emails, transactional emails, abandon cart emails, promotional emails, etc.
You can also apply personalization to email by creating user-specific personalized emails based on customer intent, behavior, or purchase history.
6. Utilize Product Videos
80 percent of business owners say that video marketing helped them increase revenue. In fact, 86% of shoppers say they’ve been swayed to buy after watching a brand video. 66% of consumers would rather watch a video than read text when researching the product.
Add a video to your product listings to promote your brand, demonstrate how your product works, and increase sales. Product videos improve brand recognition, stimulate sales, and provide a more satisfying experience for end users.
Overall, it will improve your WooCommerce store growth.
7. Reward Customers With Loyalty Points
Offering points and rewards for purchases can boost customer loyalty and WooCommerce growth. It’s a great way to attract visitors to your site and encourage them to make a purchase.
Incentives for making purchases or referring friends would increase traffic to your store and increase the number of people who become subscribers. This method is especially helpful when you have a subscription-based WooCommerce membership store.
Having these points redeemable is the cherry on top of an already excellent promotion idea and a great way to boost WooCommerce sales. Moreover, combining these strategies with flash sales is a great way to achieve optimum results.
You can install one of many available plugins, such as the YITH WooCommerce Points and Rewards plugin, to give customers a comprehensive loyalty program to encourage them to return to your store.
8. Leverage Events, Occasions, And Holidays
Large-scale purchasing occurs on commercial holidays, typically in the last three months of the year. Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales have become standard practice for those who want to grow their WooCommerce stores.
On the other hand, seasonal events (such as 11.11 in November) may bring you a lot of extra cash. However, you can’t expect to make any real money during the holidays unless you put some thought into creating innovative marketing campaigns and providing exclusive discounts or promotions.
9. Improve Customer Relationships
The inability to efficiently manage your clientele can be a significant roadblock to expanding your business, reducing your chances of gaining new leads, signing up more users, and closing more deals.
Consequently, it is crucial to have a firm grasp of online client management and communication in the context of an eCommerce business. You need to develop effective customer relationship strategies.
Here are some of the ways you can build and improve relationships with your customers and increase the growth of your WooCommerce store.
- Direct engagement on social media
- Follow up on purchases
- Email communication
- Giveaways and contests
- Excellent customer support
- Straightforward order fulfillment, return, and refund process
- Customer loyalty programs
10. Optimize The Checkout Process
70% of consumers agree that a fast checkout process will increase the likelihood that they will make a purchase. 17% of customers will abandon carts if they have problems during checkout.
If the checkout procedure is too long or difficult, customers abandon their carts and go elsewhere. To draw in customers, you must make it as simple, quick, and stress-free as possible for them to buy from you.
Maintain a simple, uncomplicated, and straightforward layout for your shopping cart page. Customers should be able to either sign up for an account or proceed through the checkout process as a guest.
Make sure they understand what they need to do and where to enter their information to complete the purchase.
Please include detailed instructions for returning an item or contacting customer service if there is an issue with their order. Also, please include the shipping options and associated costs.
You can also create direct checkout links for your WooCommerce products to save your customers time. This will result in a more pleasant and successful shopping experience for customers.
Wrap-up: Grow Your WooCommerce Store
If you run an online shop using WooCommerce, these are the WooCommerce store growth tips you should follow. If you want to rule the market, you must stay abreast of the newest developments and put into practice the top recommendations made by experts in your field.
Although the online retail space is crowded and competitive, there is still plenty of room for growth and success. The most crucial step is creating a sales and marketing strategy that accounts for new developments in the market and technology.
