E-Commerce Isn’t a Sprint

Blurs in Subway

Something I've been thinking a lot about recently is how I can help store owners succeed. WooCommerce doesn't have every imaginable feature but it is complete enough for a huge number of store owners. What I mean by that is that in terms of functionality WooCommerce is a very viable option. Newsletters – check, bundles – check, subscriptions – check, tracking numbers for shipping, check; you get the idea.

The problem for many store owners isn't a lack of features it's that they don't know how to run an e-commerce business. And that's no slight against them. Do you add intelligent recommendations or do you write blog posts to bring in more traffic?

There's no right answer and no guide that can give you all of the answers. You have to learn how to run your e-commerce business. Learning from other businesses is great but you have run your own experiments and see what works for you.

While I can't give you the perfect e-commerce quick start guide what I can do right now is tell you what not to do.

Continue Reading…

The Problem with Focus

Cat Falling
  1. Blogging for Hippo
  2. Schedule Sales with WooCommerce
  3. The Problem with Focus
  4. Give Thanks
  5. Be Thankful for the People Who Inspire You
  6. Give Yourself Space
  7. Build Resources From Support
  8. How Hard Can Membership Be?
  9. Adding Social Media Icons to WooCommerce Product Pages
  10. How to Export WooCommerce Subscriptions
  11. Upgrade Your Contact Form With Ninja Forms
  12. Why I Write
  13. Blog Comments Policy
  14. Content Marketing Works – Even with Furnace Filters
  15. Making Email from Your Website More Reliable with Email Delivery Tools
  16. A Happiness Podcast?
  17. Podcast Compensation
  18. Wishlists Done Right
  19. Enable Free Shipping on a Per Product Basis
  20. Improve Your Writing with the Hemingway Editor
  21. Tell Users What You're Doing
  22. 2014 Business Review
  23. Mind Your Own Business
  24. Think Different to 10x Your Business
  25. Let Projects Die
  26. Maximize Your Creative Energy
  27. Use Git Bisect to Find Bugs in Your Codebase
  28. My Personal Value of Remote Work
  29. Don't Spam Email Receipts
  30. Make Your Own Luck
  31. Cold Showers and the Power of Challenges

In the past year WooThemes has grown significantly. We've scaled up to the point where team members can focus on one aspect of the business and not have to pay attention to everything else going on. This brings some pretty huge advantages with a dedicated person pushing through projects that someone who's spread out on multiple projects could never do. But with it comes hyper-focus where someone will focus on their aspect of the business without knowing (or caring) how it affects other aspects of the business.

Continue Reading…

Why and How You Should Cloak Your Affiliate Links the WordPress Way

Stormtrooper in a Cloak

If you've read this blog for a bit you'll know that I'm a big fan of Ninja Forms. Every couple of months I release a new extension which adds even more functionality to Ninja Forms and makes it even more powerful. What you might not know is that I'm also an affiliate. Every time someone follows one of my links to the Ninja Forms website and purchases something I get a small cut.

The way the affiliate system works is that I have a special link so the WP Ninjas know who referred the customer. Unfortunately, in most cases the links aren't intuitive, they're long, and sometimes they change which is a big pain to update. Instead of using the link as is you can cloak the link making it look like any other page on your site. Doing so makes it easier to read, they're easy to change, and there aren't any negative SEO affects on your site.

Best of all cloaking your links is actually easier than you think and can be done with just one WordPress plugin which you might already be using.

Continue Reading…