Will there ever come a time when we don’t want to increase our online sales?

Probably not. 

Breaking new sales records is always challenging and let’s face it, you’re always on the lookout for ways to do so. 

Thanks to WordPress, creating an eCommerce site is easier than ever. It’s helping retailers add more functionality and build rich, engaging eCommerce sites. 

But a high convenience also means high competition. Data shows that there are an estimated 12 – 24 million eCommerce sites across the world and the number is growing with each passing day. 

And while not every online retailer is a direct competitor, you still need to stand out. Doing the bare minimum won’t work.

You’ll need to take extra measures to elevate your sales. Fortunately, you can do that if you’ve built your stores on WordPress and WooCommerce. All you need is a strategy and some tips to get started.

Listed below are ways you can leverage WordPress to break your sales records and increase your revenue. 

Let’s go. 

Leverage PlugIns to Boost Sales

WordPress PlugIns are a blessing to retailers aiming to add eCommerce-friendly functionalities to their sites. WooCommerce is the most popular plugin for eCommerce sites built on WordPress. In fact, 22% of the top 1 million eCommerce sites use WooCommerce to power their online store on WordPress. 

If you’re thinking about how this may help your store, understand that these plugins successfully integrate commerce with content. They provide you with greater flexibility in creating the site the way you want it, based on the products you’re selling. 

These functionalities include tax tables, payments, product descriptions, eCommerce order fulfillment processes, etc. — basically everything you’d need to smoothly run your online store. WooCommerce is also affordable, allowing small businesses to leverage its features without paying a hefty price too. 

Optimize your Site Performance

Did you know that the first five seconds of page load time have the highest impact on conversion rate? 

5 seconds. That’s all you got. 

Slow site speed is a problem many sites face but as an eCommerce store owner, poor performance can have a daunting effect on your conversion rate. So naturally, if your page loads any slower than that, you’re losing out on prospects, sales, and profit. 

To understand how your WordPress site performance is impacting your sales, first check your bounce rate. You can do so on Google Analytics. If it’s higher than average, test your page speed on Google PageSpeed Insights. You’ll get a complete picture of your page performance. 

To improve your loading time, some measures you can take are:

• Build responsive themes on WordPress that avoids complex flash elements
• Optimize your images
• Minify your site’s JavaScript and CSS
• Enable browser caching

Implement Upselling and Cross-selling

Allowing customers to discover new products or to check out services that complement the main product isn’t just limited to offline sales. Data shows that cross-selling in eCommerce can increase sales by 20% and profits by 30%. 

WordPress sites have allowed Upselling and Cross-selling to strategically make their way into online retail. One of the most common and effective ways eCommerce sites do this is by including “Related Products” or a “Frequently Bought Together” section. 

Upselling and Cross-selling are included in WooCommerce’s native functionality. You can enable them by simply going to one of your product pages, scrolling down to the Product data section, and then clicking on the Linked Products tab. 

Hence, you can easily put this technique into action, allowing customers to check out other products they might be interested in purchasing.

Incorporate Pop-ups to Prevent Lost Sales

How many times have you decided to leave a website and you’re instead immediately greeted with a pop-up that encourages you to stay? 

Exit-intent popups are the most common way to encourage action amongst prospects who decide to leave. It makes them think twice if you highlight your product value and pitch any discounts or special deals that encourage sales. 

OptinMonster is one of the most popular popup plugins for eCommerce sites on WordPress. Once you sign in, you will get access to a drag and drop builder for creating an exit-intent pop-up. You will also get options to segment your customers to personalize the messaging. 

Send Abandon Cart Emails

Cart abandonment has been a prominent issue in eCommerce as many customers end up adding items they want to buy but don’t want to purchase right away. 

Cart abandonment prospects may be the hardest to lose but they may be the easiest to convert. All they need is a nudge to complete their purchase. As a result, abandoned cart reminders have become a popular form of email marketing. 

You can use tools like MailChimp to craft personalized messages and automate these reminders. You just simply need to connect your WooCommerce shop to MailChimp via MailChimp for WordPress Premium.

Furthermore, plugins like Abandoned Cart for WooCommerce help you identify the reason and give your reports on abandoned carts. With the help of these notifications, you can identify common reasons for cart abandonment and create a well-customized workflow of emails to pitch to customers to complete their sales. 

Create Unique Title Tags for Products

To have a good conversion rate, you first need to have good traffic. And to have good traffic, you need to follow the SEO fundamentals. Your product directory may be massive but if you use generic titles for similar products, they won’t stand out in the search results. 

To capture the attention of search engines, you need to create unique title tags for each of your product pages. Title tags are an HTML element of a webpage that defines the title of the webpage. It can range from an article name to the name of the product but you need to consider the keywords you use in the title tags and ensure their readability. 

You can use Yoast WooCommerce SEO Plugin to add extra SEO features and optimize your title, meta description, and URL.

Finishing Thoughts

Building an eCommerce website on WordPress is easy, but you cannot just sit back and relax once it’s done. WooCommerce retailers face many challenges in the current eCommerce landscape due to the intense competition. The last thing you want is to fall into the trap of stagnant sales and minimal growth. 

But you need to create your space to shine and leverage the opportunities at hand to the fullest. At some point, you have to take a step back and evaluate your current site and tactics to ensure you’re on the right track. You’ll need to constantly strive toward optimizing your site performance and strategically use WordPress plugins to grow your sales and increase your conversions.