WordPress is one of the best CMS platforms for business websites. But is WordPress a good choice specifically for eCommerce websites?
Yes, as it is affordable, easy to use, and scalable, the majority of the top WordPress Development companies prefer to use this platform to build online stores.
A recent report stated that WordPress CMS powers 43% of websites on the internet. With more than 50k+ plugins, you can totally rely on WordPress to empower eCommerce stores that meet business needs.
Whether you are a WordPress developer or a business owner planning to launch a WordPress eCommerce store, you need to know which WordPress plugins can help online stores gain success in terms of higher search engine rankings and excellent shopping experiences.
So, what is the catch?
Choosing the right WordPress plugins is important to build a successful online store.
This article will help you select the right plugins for your WordPress-powered eCommerce store. Let’s get started with knowing several key categories of WordPress eCommerce plugins with examples as given below:
Key Categories to Use WordPress Plugins With Examples
To make your selection easier, we have segregated top WordPress plugins into different categories that can enhance various areas of an eCommerce store.
#1 Building Online Store
The first step towards making an online store successful is to build it effectively. The ultimate goal of building an eCommerce store is to sell products and services. The below-mentioned plugins can help you convert your WordPress website into an online store.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is one of the top eCommerce platforms for WordPress which is free and open source. Whether you need to build a new online store or move your store to WordPress, WooCommerce can be the best choice. Let’s look at some of the functionalities that WooCommerce provides.
- Sell products, subscriptions, downloads, and bundles
- Set up product displays, track orders, and inventory
- Accept payments through multiple payment options
- Add extensions for subscriptions and bookings
- Integrate stores with third-party software
- Get insights on store performance
WooCommerce is the backbone of most WordPress eCommerce stores. Its flexibility and extensive range of add-ons make it a versatile choice for businesses of all sizes. - Tomasz Borys (Sr. VP of Marketing & Sales) -Deep Sentinel
WP EasyCart
WP EasyCart is an all-in-one plugin most preferred by the best web development companies globally. Similar to WooCommerce, it also helps in setting up online stores but is more suitable for small businesses with limited product listings. Besides selling physical products, using this plugin, you can list multiple product types like digitally downloadable products, collect donations, sell subscriptions and memberships, etc. Below-mentioned are some functionalities that WP EasyCart offers
- Allows organizing products into different categories and tags for seamless navigation
- Enables users to customize their shopping cart’s appearance and functionality
- It can integrate with multiple payment gateways like Authorize.net, PayPal, Stripe, etc.
- Includes customizable themes and templates to build unique and attractive eCommerce stores
- Ensures that the online store design is responsive and works well on different screen sizes
- Integrates with other software and plugins for advanced functionality
- Users can customize the shopping cart’s appearance and functionality.
- Integrates with well-known payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net
#2 Optimizing Performance
To make an online store successful, it is important to ensure that it loads quicker and provides excellent user experience. Below-mentioned are some top WordPress plugins that can help in optimizing performance of your eCommerce website.
WP Super Cache
WP Super Cache is one of the best caching plugins for WordPress that can improve the performance of WordPress online store as it generates static HTML files from dynamic pages. Let’s have a glance at the functionalities of this plugin.
- Offers an easy setup process with a simple configuration interface, making it seamless for advanced and beginners, both
- Compresses cached files to decrease their size and loading times.
- Automates the process of cleaning old cache files that help free up the disk space and keep the cache directory organized
- Allows cached files to be served from a CDN (Content Delivery Network).
- Enables setting up custom cache expiration times for particular pages or posts
- Provides hooks and filters for web developers who need to customize caching behavior
- Displays details about cache hits and misses, which enables the analysis of cache performance and the identification of issues.
WP Super Cache is a perfect choice for improved site speed. - Gregory Shein (CEO) -CORCAVA
WP Rocket
WP Rocket plugin is built to improve website speed and performance and make it extremely easy to navigate. Below is a detailed overview of its features:
- Automates the process of refreshing the cache in regular intervals to ensure up-to-date content gets displayed in the front of visitors.
- Speeds up the loading time of the pages by generating a cache for all pages through simulated visits.
- Enables loading images and videos when they come into the viewport, which reduces page loading times and improves its speed.
- Preloading fonts ensures quicker text rendering on your site.
- Allows easy purging by clearing the cache manually or automatically, depending on events and changes.
- Enables importing and exporting WP Rocket settings for seamless migration or replication.
- Provides access to premium support and detailed documentation for assistance and troubleshooting.
Speed is very important in eCommerce. WP Rocket makes site opening times much faster, which improves the user experience and could help your SEO scores. - Jen Seran (Director of Operations) - Stallion
#3 Search Engine Optimization
An online store if not visited often can yield no profits. So, it becomes necessary to get it ranked on search engines. Effective SEO is crucial as it helps in driving traffic, improving user experience, ultimately leading to improved sales and revenue generation. Below-mentioned are some must have WordPress plugins that can help you optimize your eCommerce website and help it rank on top in search engines.
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is one of the most successfully proven SEO plugins for WordPress. It includes versatile features that help analyze a website pertaining to search engine rankings and implement efforts that really work. Below mentioned are some of its features.
- Analyzes and checks website content to ensure the right frequency of focus keywords have been used.
- Enables customizing meta titles and descriptions of every page and post and provides a preview of how they will appear in SERPs.
- Can generate breadcrumbs that enable users to seamlessly navigate through your website and boost search engine indexing.
- Generates XML sitemaps that help search engines to index your eCommerce website content accurately.
- Adds open graph metadata to improve the display of your content while posting on social media platforms like Linkedin and Facebook.
- Inserts canonical URLs wherever required to prevent duplicate content issues and improve ranking in search engines.
- Integrates with Google Search Console to deliver insights about your eCommerce website performance and work on issues if any.
In the fashion industry, visibility is everything. Yoast SEO helps ensure our products don't just look good, but they’re also easy to find. It guides you in optimizing your product descriptions and blog content, which has been crucial for us as we aim to capture the latest trends online. After using Yoast SEO, our organic search traffic increased by 28%, and our blog posts started ranking higher, bringing in a fresh wave of fashion enthusiasts eager to customize their apparel. - Nguyen Huy (founder) - Kory Threads
All in One SEO Pack
All in One SEO Pack is one of the most powerful WordPress plugins that helps make a website SEO-friendly, enabling it to gain success with reference to search engine rankings and organic traffic. Below mentioned are some of its notifying features:
- Can generate meta tags that include titles and descriptions for every page automatically.
- Enables creating XML sitemaps automatically to allow search engines to index your WordPress website efficiently.
- Creates and manages robots.txt and supports htaccess file management for additional configuration of the website
- Can integrate Open Graph metadata to make your posts incredibly attractive on different social media platforms.
- Allows creating and managing 301 redirects to handle URL changes and prevent 404 errors.
- Facilitates advanced schema markup to improve search engine understanding and display rich snippets
- Integrates Google Analytics to track the performance of your eCommerce store and implements changes when required for improved search engine rankings and visits.
#4 Payment Gateway Integrations
Payment gateway integrations play an important role in facilitating secure, smooth, and flawless financial transactions between businesses and customers. It is critical for every eCommerce business to use the right payment gateway integration platforms to win the trust of their customers. The payment gateway integration plugins mentioned below are highly used for WordPress eCommerce stores.
WooCommerce Payments
WooCommerce Payments is a WordPress plugin designed to accept payments directly on your eCommerce website with support for various payment methods. It includes a versatile set of features that can improve the payment experience for businesses and customers. Some of the features of this plugin are listed below:
- Integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce without the need for additional setup processes and third-party plugins.
- Ensures that all transactions are processed securely, complying with PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard).
- Includes in-built prevention tools that protect against scams and fraudulent transactions.
- It enables you to accept all well-known credit and debit cards directly from your WooCommerce-based online store.
- Enables accepting multiple currencies, allowing you to sell your products and services to international audiences.
- Provides a customizable and seamless checkout experience that enhances the reputation of your online store.
- Simplifies cash flow management by automatically depositing the amount received in your linked bank account.
- Provides detailed insights and reports relating to sales, transaction performance, payment trends, etc., that help you make informed business decisions.
Stripe for WooCommerce
Stripe for WooCommerce is one of the most popular payment gateway integration plugins that enables WooCommerce-based online stores to accept payments through Stripe’s platform. Stripe is a developer-friendly API with robust features, making it a preferable choice for several eCommerce businesses. Let’s have a look at some of the prominent features of Stripe for WooCommerce.
- Includes flexible payment options allowing you to accept credit/debit cards, digital wallets, and local payment methods.
- Compliant with PCI DSS, ensuring secure handling of payment data and fraud prevention.
- It can integrate seamlessly with WooCommerce and just a few configuration steps.
- It supports recurring payments, which is preferable for subscription-based products and services.
- Accepts payments in multiple currencies and supports multiple languages.
- It can provide a customizable checkout process and offers a responsive experience supporting different devices.
- Offers access to robust API for advanced functionalities and custom integrations.
Stripe’s robust security features, including real-time fraud prevention and encryption, further reassure customers, building trust and confidence in the transaction process. Stripe for WooCommerce can ultimately enhance both customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. - Jeffrey Zhou (CEO and Founder) - Fig Loans
#5 Conversion Optimization
Optimizing conversion rates is highly significant for any online store. After all, converting visitors into permanent customers is the only purpose and goal of an eCommerce business. The top WordPress plugins for conversion optimization can improve the effectiveness of your online store and help you achieve your business objectives. Here are some of the WordPress-based conversion optimization plugins.
OptinMonster
OptinMonster enables lead generation and conversion optimization activities on an online store. It helps increase conversions and boost sales by growing email lists. Below mentioned are some of its significant features that can help your eCommerce business grow:
- Includes an intuitive drag-and-drop builder that enables you to create customized forms and campaigns without coding knowledge.
- Allows the creation of attractive pop-ups that appear based on visitors’ browsing history and habits.
- Enables setting up triggers based on user behavior, like exiting or spending more time on the page.
- Can display messages on screen based on visitors’ geographical locations.
- Creates tailored messages for different customer segments.
- Allows integration with other email marketing platforms.
- Capable of scheduling campaigns that run at specific dates and times.
- Stores lead information and sync the data with marketing automation platforms and CRMs.
- Monitors the performance of the eCommerce store and provides detailed reports.
OptinMonster has been a game-changer for reducing cart abandonment. Its exit-intent technology detects when a visitor is about to leave and can trigger targeted offers. - John Pennypacker(VP, Sales & Marketing) - Deep Cognition
Thrive Leads
Thrive Leads enables businesses to create and manage effective campaigns that can grow their email lists and boost conversion rates. Below mentioned are some of the most important features of this plugin:
- Includes a customizable and user-friendly drag-and-drop editor that allows you to create opt-in forms without coding knowledge.
- Allows implementing sticky ribbons that are visible on the bottom or top of the page, which works as an attractive call-to-action.
- Enables creating different types of forms based on the subject of particular pages tailored to the message to be given to the visitors.
- Helps in using the results from A/B testing to enhance your opt-in forms based on intuitive data.
- Ability to integrate with marketing automation systems and CRMs.
- Allows configuring rules for when and where opt-in forms are displayed.
- Ensures that all opt-in forms are fully responsive and look great on multiple screen sizes.
- Enables you to capture more leads and grow your email list effectively.
#6 Customer Experience
Good customer experience is the fuel to any business. Especially when it comes to eCommerce websites, wherein competition is so fierce that retaining customers is extremely important to sustain and grow. The below-mentioned must-have WordPress plugins can help provide excellent customer experiences and ensure higher conversion and retention rates.
LiveChat
LiveChat includes versatile features which help in improving customer support and engagement. Let’s have a look at them.
- Helps initiate communication with website visitors and assists them by answering their queries.
- Automates invitations to chat based on visitors’ behavior to improve engagement.
- Redirects chat to relevant agents depending on visitors’ issues and demands.
- Allows customizing the design of chat widgets.
- Can access and store chat history to analyze customer behavior and future reference.
- Provides insights on visitors’ interactions, agent productivity, and overall chat performance.
- Enables visitors to leave messages when agents are not available so that no inquiries are missed.
LiveChat provides seamless integration for instantaneous customer help. - Muhammad Ummar Rashid(SEO Specialist) - Digital Willow
WooCommerce Product Add-Ons
WooCommerce Product Add-Ons is a WordPress plugin that enables increasing average order value through personalized options for customers. Below-mentioned are its prominent features:
- Allows displaying add-ons based on customer selections, creating a personalized shopping experience.
- Organizes add-ons into groups for better management and presentation.
- Enables setting up additional costs for add-ons, whether on a fixed or percentage basis.
- Allows complex combinations of options, creating appealing product customizations.
- Sets quantity limits for particular add-ons to manage inventory flawlessly.
- Includes add-on details in order confirmation emails and messages for enhanced clarity.
- Compatible with multiple language online stores.
- Ability to integrate with multiple plugins.
WooCommerce Product Add-Ons is a WordPress plugin that’s been fantastic for offering customizable product options. - Chris Bajda E-commerce Entrepreneur & Managing Partner at Groomsday
#7 Security
Having robust security in online stores is extremely important as there is a lot of critical customer information, like their card details, addresses, etc., stored within. A single malicious activity can lead to customer loss and a bad reputation for your eCommerce store. The top WordPress tools mentioned below can help you enhance the security of your online store.
Wordfence Security
Wordfence Security is a WordPress plugin that is designed to protect eCommerce websites from malicious threats. Some of its features include:
- It provides a WAF (Web application firewall) that prevents websites from malicious traffic and saves them from cyber attacks.
- Automatically removes threats by scanning your website for malware and vulnerabilities.
- Facilitates two-factor authentication and CAPTCHa login attempts to keep account information secure.
- Identifies and monitors live traffic and malicious activities on the website.
- Alerts about critical issues, security incidents, or unauthorized access attempts.
- Protects websites’ REST APIs from unauthorized access.
- Includes a secure maintenance mode option for your website during updates or troubleshooting.
It is important, in terms of security, to include Wordfence Security, which would save the store from possible attacks and ensure that your customer data remains secure. - Alex Vasylenko (Tech Entrepreneur & Founder) - The Frontend Company.
Sucuri Security
Sucuri Security is a WordPress plugin that offers comprehensive security solutions for WordPress websites. Let’s learn about some of its features:
- Provides protection against various threats by monitoring and filtering incoming traffic
- It blocks malicious requests that have threats of viruses or information tampering.
- Scans websites for malware, vulnerabilities, and blacklisting status on a regular basis.
- Tracks changes made to websites and user activities to identify the possibility of potential security breaches.
- Protects websites from malware attacks by limiting login attempts and blocking suspicious IP addresses.
- It facilitates cleaning up viruses and recovering from hacks, including malware removal and hardening recommendations.
#8 Reporting and Analytics
Gauging customer insights, sales performance, and other required metrics is extremely important for the growth for eCommerce businesses as that helps in making consistent efforts that improve and enhance sales. For that purpose, WordPress plugins have been designed to analyze and generate reports that help you understand the current position of your eCommerce store and predict its future aspects. Let’s have a look at some of them.
Google Analytics for WooCommerce
Integrating Google Analytics with WooCommerce can help you access reports that show current situations about sales, customer behavior, and overall store performance and predict future problems. Let’s look at some of its prominent features.
- Real-time analytics relating to every product performance, including impressions & clicks, add-to-cart actions, and purchases.
- Analyze average order value, conversion rates, total revenue, and cart abandonment rates.
- Track buyers’ journeys to understand their behavior, preferences, and style they follow while navigating through store pages.
- Identify traffic sources, like organic, paid, social, etc., to implement successful marketing campaigns.
- Know which products are highly searched and visited on your website to optimize product offerings and website navigation.
To track the performance of your store, integrating Google Analytics through this plugin is a must. It helps you monitor traffic, conversions, and customer behavior, allowing you to optimize for better results. - Ally Moisse (SEO Specialist) Pearl Lemon
Metorik
Metorik is a plugin specifically designed for analyzing and generating reports for WooCommerce websites so that online store owners can make smart and informed decisions, enhance customer experiences, and optimize their operations. Let’s have a look at some of its features as given below:
- Generates reports that provide information about sales & revenue, customer activities, allowing you to monitor store performance on a real-time basis.
- Provides in-detail reports about customers, coupons used, products, enabling you to understand your online store metrics at a glance.
- It helps you analyze customer behavior, purchase frequency, and retention rates, leading to improved marketing strategies.
- Tracks the highest-selling products, inventory count, and sales trends to optimize your product offerings.
- Monitors and analyzes shopping cart abandonment rates and plans recovery strategies.
- Ability to personalize dashboards so that you can focus on metrics most important for your business.
So, these were the best WordPress plugins solving different purposes of an online store. Precisely, choosing the right plugins is important, as they can enhance performance, user experience, security, and many more aspects of an online store which can ensure its success and help it adapt to changing market trends and consumers’ demands. Let’s elaborate on this topic and have a look at why choosing the right plugins is important for the success of your online store.
Why Is Choosing the Right Plugins Important for the Success of Your Online Store?
Selecting the right plugins is critical to your online store due to the reasons given below:
It helps you optimize the speed and performance of your online store.
- Capable of extending the functionality of your online store and thus enabling you to engage and retain customers.
- Includes security features that protect your online store from malware attacks and minimize the risk of security breaches.
- Enhances user experience by improving overall usability and streamlining the checkout process.
- Integrates seamlessly with your different existing systems like CRM, marketing automation software, inventory management tools, creating a centralized and synced operational workflow.
- Empowers scalability in online stores to handle increased traffic without technical glitches.
- Boosts ROI by increasing sales, reducing cart abandonments, and enhancing operational efficiencies.
- The best WordPress tools come with enhanced support and regular updates to ensure your store is trending according to market demands.
- Many WordPress plugins also enable your store to meet GDPR compliance for data protection, which is vital to avoiding legal issues and building customer trust.
- The right WordPress plugins help you to implement customization on your store which adds to improved customer experience in terms of functionality and appearance.
Therefore, choosing the right WordPress plugins is beneficial for your online business. But how can you ensure that you have selected the right WordPress tools that can help your online business grow and yield the desired results? Let’s look at some factors to consider when choosing WordPress plugins.
Factors to Consider While Choosing WordPress Plugins
Below are some factors that you need to consider when selecting WordPress plugins for eCommerce websites.
Let's have a look at these factors in detail:
Compatibility
To make your WooCommerce store working properly, you need to ensure that you have chosen its plugins that are compatible with other technical specifications of the store.
Functionality
List out the extended functionality you need for your eCommerce store and accordingly choose plugins that meet your business requirements.
Customer Reviews
Check users’ reviews about plugins and their overall reputation in the WordPress community before you select plugins for your eCommerce store.
Developer Support
Identify plugins that are regularly updated and supported by their respective developers as you can get support and guidance from them benefiting your eCommerce store.
Performance Impact
Research about the performance impact plugins can have on your online store by taking up trials, and based on that you can select plugins that can enhance performance of your store.
Security
Choose plugins from reputable vendors and make sure that they have robust security features to prevent vulnerabilities in your store.
User-Friendliness
Search for easy-to-use and easy-to-set-up plugins. These user-friendly WordPress plugins can help you overcome challenges with minimum technical knowledge.
Customization
The WordPress tools you choose should allow customization options being able to meet your specific needs and integrate well with your store. Consider whether the plugin allows for customization that matches your specific needs and integrates well with your theme.
Integration Capabilities
The best WordPress plugins you select should be compatible enough to integrate with other tools and software you are working with to gain enhanced functionality on your store.
Pricing Budget
If you are using free WordPress plugins, then this criteria might not be applicable to your situation. But, for paid WordPress plugins, you need to make sure that you choose the ones that fit into your budget.
Restore and Backup Facility
Do your WordPress plugins offer restore and backup facility? If yes, then you can choose them as you need to keep your data secure and cannot afford to lose information pertaining to your customers and sales.
Community and Resources
Ensure that there is a strong community for WordPress plugins you choose. Support in the form of forums, documentation, and tutorials can help you make the most out of your plugins and enhance your store’s performance.
Final Words - Select the Right WordPress Plugins for your eCommerce Business
Finally, by intricately choosing the right plugins for your WordPress eCommerce store is significant. In that case, it is always better to consult the professionals as they can help you choose highly functional plugins benefitting your online business.
Hence, you can get help from the top eCommerce developers and companies to build a successful and robust online store that includes the best WordPress plugins available that create an amazing online presence for your business.
