According to WordPress.com, 42% of websites on the internet are powered by WP. 7 to 8 out of 10 top-ranking blogs you will find in search result pages of Google or Bing are powered by this website builder. WP not only lets you create and launch blogs but is also a robust eCommerce solution when you install WooCommerce and use it. Here are the reasons why WP is suitable for eCommerce websites.
Design, themes, and plugins
The latest edition of WordPress ships with the Gutenberg editor. Gutenberg is one of the best tools right now for building pages, in case you are not aware. The Automattic team has been upgrading Gutenberg with new features ever since the first version of the editor was launched. If you don’t want to use Gutenberg, you can use Elementor or WPBakery or Beaver Builder or Divi. eCommerce sites can be slow, but your website will be blazing fast if you use the right theme and plugins. WP Rocket, for example, is the best caching plugin for WP. It caches the pages of your site and sends requested pages from its cache. Thereby making the pages load faster on the client’s computer or smartphone. Astra and Divi are powerful themes that are not only fast but also feature-rich.
Great support
As WordPress has a large user base and is powered by two of the most popular programming languages, SQL and PHP, getting help on WP-related topics won’t be difficult. WP end users are very helpful. If you look at the official WP support forum, many threads or questions posted by users are answered by other users. You can also get help on WP on popular sites such as Reddit, Quora, StackOverflow, StackExchange, Facebook groups, etc.
SEO Plugins
An eCommerce site may have many pages. If you don’t take precautions, search engines will index all pages they can reach. If the pages are thin or duplicate, your site will not do well in SERPs. WordPress SEO plugins that work with WooCommerce let you choose the pages that you want the search bots to index and allow you to add a meta description and a custom title for the page. The plugins can also generate and insert Open Graph tags in the eCommerce site’s header. Why are Open Graph tags important? If the Open Graph tags are missing, the social media sites will only show the product title and description. They won’t show the product image when you share the product page on social media portals. Similarly, if the meta description tag is missing, search engines may show a random snippet on the product page as a meta description.
Also see: Rank Math vs SEOPress
Easy
eCommerce site owners have to set up a payment gateway, manage orders, create and manage products, take care of the website’s performance, and more. Whether the eCommerce website is owned or operated by one person or several people, WP is a perfect eCommerce solution. With a few clicks of a button, you can enable a payment system for your WP store. WooCommerce lets you create and manage orders, set up discounts on purchases, and create beautiful product pages with ease.
Maintenance
Managing products on a WooCommerce store is easy. Thus, you won’t have to hire someone to look after your WP site’s products, pricing, discounts, and orders. You can single-handedly manage a WordPress-powered eCommerce store.
What if you don’t use WordPress?
Website builders that let you build eCommerce portals have costly subscription plans. For example, Squarespace eCommerce packages start at 26 dollars. You can quickly build an eCommerce store with WP for less than half 26 dollars i.e. below 13 dollars. For example, if you buy a Hostgator Cloud pack, you can launch a WooCommerce-enabled store for less than 13 dollars. This is because the most expensive Hostgator cloud plan costs under 10 dollars. The server that ships with this plan has 6GB RAM and a 6-core processor. With these resources, you can launch not only one but multiple WooCommerce websites. The cloud hosting pack of Hostgator comes with a free domain. To save money with WP, you must find the right products.
Is WordPress good for eCommerce? Yes, it certainly is.
