Mastering WooCommerce: Build, customize, and launch a complete e-commerce website with WooCommerce from scratch

Mastering WooCommerce
Contributors
About the author
About the reviewer
Preface
   Who this book is for
   What this book covers
   To get the most out of this book
   Download the example code files
   Conventions used
   Get in touch
   Share Your Thoughts
   Download a free PDF copy of this book
Part 1: Exploring the essentials of an ECommerce Store
1
Installing WordPress and WooCommerce
   Technical requirements
   New features in WooCommerce
      WooCommerce Admin
      WooCommerce Payments
      WooCommerce blocks
      HPOS
   Importance of test sites
      Migrating the files but not the database
      Testing with a publicly accessible URL
   Creating an ad-free experience
      Jetpack without promotions
      Disable marketplace suggestions
      Making your own custom plugin
   Installing WooCommerce
      Setting your store address and store details
      Payment settings
      How many payment gateways?
      Installing Stripe
      Add tax rates
      Get more sales
      Personalizing your store
   Summary
2
All About Configuring Products
   Simple products
      Product data fields
      Optional fields
      Inventory and stock
      Shipping
      Understanding taxonomies
      Adding images
      Product description and short description
      A fully configured simple product
   Variable products
      Attributes
      Variations
      Editing individual variations
      Images for variations
      Multi-attribute variations
      Troubleshooting variations
   Digital products
      Defining digital products
      Downloadable but not virtual
      Configuring virtual and downloadable products
      Large downloadable files
      Accessing downloads
   Product bundles
      Grouped products
      Product bundles
      Configurable bundles
      Product kits
   Subscriptions
      Creating a subscription product
      Adding a recurring payment option to a product
      Subscription settings
      Manual versus automatic renewals
      Subscription switching
      Synchronization
      Retrying failed payments
   Summary
3
Organizing Products
   Technical requirements
   Categorizing and tagging
      Mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive
      Tagging products
   Optimizing product archive pages
      Writing descriptions for product categories
      Context matters
      Meta-description for categories
      A pretty category description
      URLs
      Redirects in WordPress
   Adding product filters to your Shop page
      Hidden widgets
      Active product filters
   Understanding product blocks
      Single product pages
      Customizing product blocks
      Featuring a product
      The value of blocks
   Summary
4
Attracting Traffic with Search Engine Optimization
   Technical Requirements
   Why you should invest in SEO
      One-off marketing strategies
      Always-on marketing
   Keyword research for e-commerce
      Creating a list of keywords
      Comparing search volume
      Optimizing for keywords
   Configuring breadcrumbs for search engines and users
      Adding custom PHP code
      Using a plugin
   Creating and sharing an XML sitemap
      Submitting an XML sitemap to Google
   Keeping an eye on Google Search Console
   Summary
Part 2: Managing an Online Store
5
Managing Sales Through WP Admin
   Technical requirements
   Fulfilling orders
      Exploring new order notifications
      New order badge in the site admin
      Browsing orders
      Viewing shipping information
      Packing the boxes
      Printing shipping labels
      Dropping off packages
      Marking orders as complete
   Refunding orders and payments
      Refund requests
      Building a refund process
   Viewing sales data
      WooCommerce analytics
      What sells
      Gross profit
      Taxes
   Using third-party reporting platforms
      Exploring Metorik
      Pick one
   Summary
6
Syncing Product Data
   Exporting out of WooCommerce
      Exploring a CSV file
      Including content in a CSV file
   Importing products via CSV
      Importing a CSV
   Integrating with an ERP
      Finding an ERP
      Configuring Finale Inventory
      Importing products into ERP
      Using an ERP
   Summary
7
Configuring In-Store POS Solutions
   Technical requirements
   Setting up WooCommerce POS
      Accepting credit cards
      Setting up payment for Stripe
      Selecting WooCommerce POS
   Setting up Square
      Connecting with Square
      Setting up Square for WooCommerce
      Syncing data
   Syncing data in-store and with WooCommerce
      Single database systems
      Mastering synced databases via an API
      Manually syncing data
   Summary
8
Using Fulfillment Software
   Sending and updating shipping information
      Sending shipping data
      Sending emails
      Configuring webhooks
      Building a custom integration
      Updating data
      Processing a daily email
      Retrieving order data through a custom integration
   Configuring Shippo
      Signing up for Shippo
      Configuring Shippo’s setup information
      Fulfilling orders with Shippo
   Configuring ShipStation
      Integrating with ShipStation
      Fulfilling packages with ShipStation
      Printing pick lists
      Using the ShipStation app
   Summary
9
Speeding Up Your Store
   Technical requirements
   Monitoring speed and performance
      Finding a starting point with GTmetrix
      Web Vitals
      Testing changes
   Minifying CSS and JavaScript resources
      Setting up Autoptimize
      Concatenate files if necessary
   Optimizing images
      Optimizing images with Jetpack
      Optimizing images with Imagify
      Using the bulk updater
   Caching and e-commerce
      Configuring caching plugins
      Configuring caching via HTACCESS
      Page caching
   Optimizing content above the fold
   Summary
Part 3: Customizing the Appearance and Functionality of Your Store
10
Setting Up Your Theme
   Choosing a theme for WooCommerce
      Exploring the Twenty Twenty-Four theme
      Storefront
      Exploring Astra
   Rearranging the product page
      Installing hook visualizers
      Stop showing hooks
      Browsing through code for actions
      Demo – move the product price
   Adding a product data tab
      Installing a custom tab plugin
      Adding a custom tab
   Extensive customizations using child themes
   Summary
11
Customizing the Product Page
   Adding social proof (FOMO)
      Setting up FOMO
      Customizing notifications
      Removing events
   Adding a video tab
      Installing a video tab
      Adding an extra tab
   Displaying 360-degree images
      Installing WooCommerce 360° Image
      Adding 360-degree images to products
   Summary
12
Building a Landing Page
   Building a long-form landing page
      Creating a new page
      Understanding the structure of a landing page
      Add content to a landing page
   Adding e-commerce to a landing page
      Adding a featured product
      Adding an add-to-cart button
      Finding the product ID
      Adding the button
      One Page Checkout
   Measure and test everything
      An overview of a CRO experiment
      Setting up scroll maps and heatmaps
   Summary
13
Creating Plugins for WooCommerce
   Technical requirements
   Building a basic WooCommerce plugin
      Creating a plugin
      Checking whether WooCommerce is active
   Customizing order statuses
      Using the WooCommerce example plugin
      Registering a post status and adding it to WooCommerce
   Building a settings page with WooCommerce
      Creating the main integration file
      Creating the Integration child class
      Creating a constructor
      Adding field settings
   Summary
14
Next Steps with WooCommerce
   Technical requirements
   Why and how to make your WooCommerce store accessible
      Inclusivity
      Legal liability
      Business benefits
      Prepare for demographic trends
      How to make your store accessible
   Keeping WooCommerce safe and secure
      Check your hosting before you launch
      Use an SSL certificate
      Keep WordPress core and plugins up to date
      Keep your version of PHP supported
      Two-factor login for administrators
      Scan for downtime
   Staying up to date with WooCommerce and open source software
      Follow the Developer Blog
      Annual conferences
      Contributing to WooCommerce
      Office hours
   Summary
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