What is WooCommerce

WooCommerce is one of the most popular ecommerce platforms on which you can build your online store and start your ecommerce business. It is one of the most commonly used platforms because it offers a powerful dashboard which helps you in creating and managing your online store, accommodating any needs and features. 

It doesn’t matter whether you have experience in ecommerce or you have just started your business, WooCommerce is the choice for a majority of online store owners. 

But why is WooCommerce preferred over its competition?

WooCommerce does not provide you a web hosting service, but still it is considered one of the best ecommerce platforms based on WordPress because of several reasons. 

• Customizable: 

WooCommerce is a flexible platform which allows you to use various plugins and extensions to have a customised layout for your store. You can use any plugins and extensions of your choice, which are compatible with WooCommerce and give your store the unique look you decide.

• Easily Understandable: 

Setting up your store on WooCommerce is quite easy, even if you do not possess technical knowledge or coding skills. Everything you need while setting up your online store, from product listing and management to shipping tariff and payments is as simple as it can be.

• Cost-effective: 

WooCommerce is a free-to-use, open source platform, so you don’t have to invest money from the start. But the money you save here can be used to purchase an appropriate hosting and for registering domains.

• SEO-friendly: 

It is one of the most optimised platforms for SEO. It offers you features like customisable URLs, meta description and many more, which will help you attract a lot of traffic and in the long run, get you website a good ranking, increasing its visibility.

• Advanced Features: 

WooCommerce is not just optimised for SEO. It also provides advanced features like product management, shipping rates, sales and marketing tools, reports and analytics. Another feature which makes WooCommerce advanced is its mobile friendly design.

What features to look for while choosing a web hosting for WooCommerce? 

Choosing the web hosting process is an important decision. This decision will impact the performance and user experience of your store, and finally determine the success or failure of your business. 

Numerous factors are considered while making a decision about web hosting for a WooCommerce website. 

• Speed 

Any slow responding ecommerce store will lead to a high bounce rate, a bad customer experience and poor search engineer rankings, which will lead to a loss in business. 

While choosing the hosting service provider, you need to consider the server uptime and website speed. 

Most of the hosting service providers guarantee a 99.9% uptime, fast performance and SSD options for storage which increases the website speed. 

• Security Features

Ecommerce sites built on WooCommerce are the primary targets for a cyberattack due to the popularity of CMS. So, it is important that the web hosting provider gives SSL certificates, firewall and  malware protection softwares. Another thing which you must ensure that the service provider gives you is a daily or a weekly backup plan. 

Also ensure that you are provided with 24×7 support, in case of emergency. Constant monitoring should also be taken care of by the service provider. You can also choose additional security features such as 2-factor authentication, intrusion detection and many more. 

• Scalability 

When your store grows bigger and you need to purchase more resources so that each of your website visitors gets an amazing experience, you need to make sure that scalability options are provided by the hosting company. 

Some companies only provide scalability plans as pre-existing plans, but in today’s tech age, companies are switching to a pay-as-you-use model, where you only pay for the resources which you have used. 

Hosting providers must ensure that you can upgrade easily to a better plan, if and when you need it. And the process of changing servers should be seamless or have the least amount of downtime, so the website does not lose visitors. 

• Customer Support

Best of the resources are worth nothing for your website if you don’t get high-quality customer support. The support team has to be technically sound, because they will have to resolve the issues remotely. The support should be available 24×7 because any time the customer has an issue, they could call the support. Multiple channel communications must be available for the customers, which include a call, live chat and email.

• Pricing

Price should be the last of your concerns, but it should be considered. However, you should not leave a great web hosting only because it is a bit more expensive than the rest. Price definitely should be considered, but when you have a great web hosting service which has many additional benefits and some freebies, you won’t find the expensive hosting to be hurting your wallet. 

Conclusion

Because WooCommerce does not provide a hosting service, you must purchase a hosting service according to your needs and requirements. Some factors which you must consider are performance, reliability, speed, security and value for money, among other factors.