Cyber Weekend—the interval surrounding Black Friday and Cyber Monday—is only a few brief weeks away, but when your websites aren’t prepared for an inflow of buyer exercise, you would possibly miss out on record-breaking site visitors and gross sales. 

That’s as a result of this yr’s vacation gross sales season, which kicks off Nov. 24, is projected to usher in $221.8 billion earlier than the tip of the yr. Ensuring your websites are prepared for the anticipated surge in site visitors is vital to capitalizing on this chance. 

So how do you put together? In case you’ve attended any of WP Engine’s eCommerce-focused digital occasions, you’ve heard our visitor audio system and subject material specialists emphasize the significance of guaranteeing your WooCommerce retailer not solely survives however thrives from Black Friday to Cyber Monday, and all through your complete vacation season. 

Whereas the session covers particular techniques and options you should utilize, together with must-have add-ons and plugins that can take your WooCommerce retailer to the following degree, WP Engine’s eCommerce internet hosting plans are one of the best ways to entry all of those options and options in a single place, from a single supplier. Plans are actually obtainable with a 60-day money-back assure! 

Use Coupon Code WooReady23 for 4 months free with the acquisition of a new WP Engine eCommerce plan!

On this article, we’ll present you the way new and present WP Engine prospects can begin utilizing our eCommerce internet hosting plans, in addition to a step-by-step information for establishing very important options like On the spot Retailer Search. Right here’s what we’ll cowl: 

Launching Your WooCommerce Retailer with WP Engine

Optimizing your eCommerce retailer with WP Engine is straightforward for each new and present prospects. 

In case you’re fascinated by migrating an present WooCommerce retailer to our platform from one other supplier, you’ll be able to communicate to considered one of our specialists at any time for a walk-through of our free, automated migration plugin and straightforward retailer setup. Take a look at the video beneath for extra!

In case your WooCommerce retailer is already hosted on WP Engine’s platform (otherwise you wish to construct a brand new eCommerce website utilizing your WP Engine account), upgrading to eCommerce internet hosting is just a matter of choosing your new plan and right-sizing your obtainable assets to accommodate anticipated (and surprising) fluctuations in site visitors.    

This breaks down into two classes. If your corporation doesn’t expertise seasonal site visitors spikes (nor do you count on to see higher-than-normal site visitors at sure factors all year long), you would possibly choose considered one of our shared internet hosting plans on the Startup, Skilled, Progress, or Scale ranges—which you are able to do on our eCommerce web page or via your Person Portal. 

However should you’re aiming to your finest Cyber Weekend but, and also you wish to make sure that your website is prepared for the approaching throngs of shoppers prepared to purchase your merchandise, get in contact with considered one of our answer consultants to discover a tailored, devoted internet hosting answer that can meet your wants.

Discovering the Proper Assets for Your WooCommerce Retailer

Ensuring you’ve gotten the correct assets in place earlier than Black Friday kicks off is crucial to serving the entire site visitors that involves your website with an optimum consumer expertise—earlier than, throughout, and after the busy gross sales cycle. 

Startup, Skilled, Progress, and Scale plans all present glorious worth for on a regular basis eCommerce site visitors with constant, stable efficiency and eCommerce-specific options like ElasticPress.

However Cyber Weekend isn’t simply one other day on the store, and the eCommerce vacation season historically generates an excellent longer, sustained spike in higher-than-normal buyer exercise.

Throughout this era, many retailers count on a gradual stream of hundreds of tourists an hour, over the course of a month or extra. For this, we suggest our customized devoted internet hosting options, which have in mind your corporation aims and guarantee you’ve gotten the burst capability wanted to seize excessive quantity, excessive concurrency gross sales this Cyber Weekend and past.

And whereas efficiency is crucial for eCommerce success, securing your website and the information you acquire from prospects is equally if no more necessary. 

WP Engine has you coated right here as nicely, with enterprise-grade eCommerce safety for WordPress together with platform protections from unauthenticated file system entry, managed WAF, DDoS mitigation, encrypted international community routing, and federated id options—all on a platform that has accomplished a SOC 2 Kind II examination for safety and availability. 

As you take into account your choices, be sure you communicate with considered one of our specialists, obtainable 24/7, who will help you consider the variations between plans and discover the right match to your website’s wants. 

Including On the spot Retailer Search to Your WooCommerce Retailer

When you’ve arrange your eCommerce internet hosting plan, it’s necessary to start out getting probably the most out of it immediately. 

Organising On the spot Retailer Search, which is powered by ElasticPress to fully overhaul the search expertise in your eCommerce website, is among the simplest methods you can begin seeing eCommerce outcomes. We’ve seen 18% enhancements in gross sales from merely taking this step and bettering the search expertise to your website guests.

To get began, you’ll be able to both add a brand new eCommerce website or choose from an present one inside your Person Portal. 

For this instance, we’ll begin by including a brand new eCommerce website (Utilizing the “Add website” possibility) and choosing “Begin with an eCommerce website” within the tile menu on the middle of the display.

On the following web page, you’ll choose your website setting and title it: 

With that accomplished, you’ll be able to log in to the WordPress admin space, the place, as a brand new eCommerce plan consumer, you’ll see the ElasticPress plugin is already put in and lively. 

Clicking into the ElasticPress settings, you’ll be able to see how the plugin has already been preconfigured for eCommerce.

Particular options geared in direction of bettering the eCommerce expertise embody: 

• ​​Improved put up search: Energy search throughout your whole WordPress content material.
• Autosuggest: Recommend search queries to your buyers whereas they sort!
• Aspects: Add filter controls to your retailer so consumers can filter merchandise. E.g. t-shirts, purple, dimension M, On Sale, and so on.
• Customized Search Outcomes: Manually outline search phrases you need merchandise or posts to “rank” for.

Take a look at this put up for a better take a look at these options, together with video examples of Autosuggest and Fuzzy Search in motion. For extra details about On the spot Retailer Search, together with the best way it makes your website even quicker by offloading ElasticPress server requests, try the technical documentation right here.  

Closing Cyber Weekend Prep for Your WooCommerce Retailer

As you prepare for this yr’s eCommerce rush, it’s smart to proceed testing your website whereas on the lookout for further enhancements that may be made throughout the buying expertise. 

Internet hosting your WooCommerce retailer with WP Engine will let you go that additional mile, with peace of thoughts that big-ticket gadgets similar to server assets, safety, and the power to scale when wanted are already taken care of. 

As soon as Cyber Weekend rolls round and also you’re crushing your eCommerce objectives, you’ll even have peace of thoughts that extra of your cash is staying in your pocket. Not like different common eCommerce options like Shopify, WP Engine doesn’t take a proportion of your gross sales—you pay to your plan and that’s it. 

So, with Cyber Weekend developing rapidly, what are you ready for? Optimize your WooCommerce retailer at present and buckle in to your finest vacation season but. With a 60-day money-back assure, WP Engine’s eCommerce internet hosting affords you one of the best ways to prepare for a recording-breaking gross sales cycle!

Discover out extra about WP Engine’s eCommerce internet hosting plans right here, or communicate to a specialist now for extra info.