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Posts Tagged ‘Wordpress Support services’

How to integrate Square payment gateway with WordPress

July 15th, 2022

Whenever you are running an online store, it is important to use all the necessary tools that will help you run things smoothly. Square Payment gateway is one of the major online payment gateways that different online stores are using. If you have just started an online store and you are finding it difficult to integrate Square payment gateway with WordPress, then you are in good hands. 

WooCommerce offers a Square gateway plugin that you can easily install and integrate your Square account with your business WordPress website. Integrating the Square payment gateway with WordPress is fairly simple and you won’t need a lot of hassle to do it. Let’s jump into a complete guide to integrating the Square payment gateway with WordPress. 

What is Square payment gateway?

Square is a payment gateway with an end-to-end processor or a virtual terminal. Square was founded in 2009 and it became an excellent eCommerce solution. 

Square gives merchants an easy way to collect payments from customers by reading credit cards. Their actual product is their in-person POS system. 

Square does not charge any sign-up fees and there are no hidden fees as well. Square provides multiple business features and you will find some costs associated with those features. The small portion of charges will depend on the transaction type. For example, Square will charge a 2.9% fee on Square invoices, Online stores, Online APIs, and eCommerce cards on file payments. 

Square can be integrated easily with your online store and it won’t be a hassle at all. Let’s have a quick look at different ways to connect Square in WordPress.

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Integration of Square in WordPress

Square integration with WordPress is easy and you will find multiple ways to do it. You can integrate Square with a variety of forms in WordPress and it is ideal for small merchants. Square can be integrated into WordPress using the following ways:  

However, in this specific guide, we will share a complete tutorial on how you can integrate the Square payment gateway in WordPress using WooCommerce.

What do you need?

To get started, you only need a few things so you can set up a Square payment gateway easily with your WordPress site. Here’s a list of things you should have to get started. 

  • A WordPress website
  • Square Account
  • WooCommerce Plugin
  • Square for WooCommerce plugin by WooCommerce

Let’s get started with the process of integrating your Square account with WooCommerce so you can start making transactions with no disruption.

How to integrate Square payment gateway with WordPress

To integrate the Square payment gateway, you will have to download and activate the Square for WooCommerce plugin by WooCommerce. If you are running an online store on WordPress, then we are assuming that you are already using a WooCommerce plugin. The first step is the installation of the Square for the WooCommerce plugin and then set it up.

Install Square for WooCommerce

The first step is to install this plugin to support the Square payment gateway with WooCommerce. All you have to do is to navigate to the Plugins tab in your WordPress dashboard and click ‘Add New’.

plugin to support

Once you are on the plugins page, you can search for the plugin named, ‘Square for WooCommerce’ in the search tab and you will be able to see the plugin in the search results. Click on Install the plugin and then activate the plugin.

Install Square for WooCommerce

After activating the plugin, you can now start connecting your site to Square via this plugin.

Connect your site to Square

To start using Square with WordPress, you need to connect your site to your Square account. To do that, you can navigate to the WooCommerce > Settings in your WordPress dashboard.

WooCommerce Settings

After clicking the ‘Settings’ tab in WooCommerce, you will be able to see another tab named, ‘Square’. Click on it to start connecting your website.

Square tab

Here, you will see multiple options including an option named, ‘Connect with Square’. This is where you will connect your Square account with your website. 
It is important for you to have a Square account before you start connecting your website. If you don’t have a Square account yet, then you can create a new account and carry on with the process.

When you click on the ‘Connect with square’ button, you will be redirected to the Square login page. After logging into your Square account, you will see a permission page. You can allow the permissions for WooCommerce to move on from this point.

Permission Page

After clicking ‘Allow’ on the permissions page, you will be able to connect your Square account with WooCommerce. Here, you will be able redirected back to your site with complete authentication.

Square Authentication

After authentication, you can now start setting up Square settings in your WooCommerce. Now, you will have to carefully select the right details for your business including the business location, and product system of record. You can also enable it by clicking on checkboxes named, ‘Sync Inventory’ and ‘Handle Missing Products’.

Square Settings

Click ‘save changes’ and move on to the next step.

Have issues with connecting the Square payment gateway on your website?

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Enabling Square in WooCommerce

The next step is to enable Square in WooCommerce. To do this, you can navigate to WordPress Dashboard > WooCommerce > Settings > Payments. 

Click on the Payments tab to make some changes. 

To enable Square payments, you just have to click the checkbox named, ‘Square’ and then click the ‘Set up’ button.

WooCommerce Settings

After clicking the ‘Set up’ button, you will see a new page. Here, you will have to click the checkbox labeled ‘Enable this gateway’. After doing so, move on to the Transaction Type and select ‘Charge’. After that, you will have to save settings and move on to the next step.

setting up square

Test if Square is working

Now you have set up Square properly with your WooCommerce site. At this point, you can test that Square is working fine by doing a live transaction. 

Change one of your product’s prices to $1 and test with a live transaction. 

You can open your website from a new device and add that product to your cart. You will be able to see the option to pay with your credit card. Make the transaction to see if your Square is set up nicely. 

Questions that people ask

1. Can I connect Stripe without WooCommerce?

Yes, you can integrate Stripe with WordPress without WooCommerce. There are multiple plugins including Gravity Forms & Easy Digital Downloads that you can use to connect Stripe with your WordPress site.

2. Can I use multiple payment gateways with WooCommerce?

Yes, you can use multiple payment gateways with WooCommerce. You can use PayPal, Square, Stripe, and others at the same time with your WooCommerce store.

3. Does Stripe accept both, debit and credit cards?

Yes, Stripe accepts credit and debit cards. Stripe is one of the most popular payment gateways and it gives excellent choices to store owners.

Conclusion

If you have followed these guidelines, then Square is all set up nicely and you can charge using Square now. If you are facing problems, then you can enable debug mode as well to see the errors you are facing or contact our WordPress maintenance team to help install it for you.
For debugging, you will have to navigate to WordPress Dashboard > WooCommerce Settings > Payments > Square. Here, you can enable the ‘Detailed Declined Messages’ checkbox. After saving settings, you can open your website from a new device and go through the checkbox process to understand the error it is displaying.

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Categories: CMS, Ecommerce, Wordpress

Benefits of Shopify WordPress Integration for Ecommerce Websites

October 19th, 2021

Let’s discuss about the benefits of Shopify WordPress Integration for an Ecommerce Website. As we know, the most popular eCommerce platforms today are WordPress and Shopify. Both are highly successful eCommerce solutions that have earned millions of customers worldwide. Business owners who prefer WordPress have the option to integrate it with their Shopify store to further boost their online sales. This integration can dramatically increase the conversion rates by a significant margin. In fact, some experts suggest that integrating both systems can double your profits.

But if you have Shopify, there are certain things you must do before implementing WordPress into your business. Some experts recommend first going through some basic tutorials to familiarize you with different modules and WordPress features. After that, it is time to choose the right Shopify plugins that will be beneficial for your store. Fortunately, there are many Shopify  maintenance experts who can help you decide on which particular Shopify plugins will be best for your store. This article will discuss the most common positive sides and negative sides of integrating Shopify and WordPress.

Benefits of Shopify WordPress Integration

Shopify Themes

The first positive side of integrating Shopify and WordPress is that most Shopify themes have built-in support for WordPress. This means that when you install a Shopify theme using the installation process of Shopify’s platform, you will automatically receive support for the WordPress platform. You can ask questions about specific modules or plugins and have them installed and activated by the Shopify support team. Most often, Shopify theme support comes with a one-month money-back guarantee.

Inventory Management System

Another benefit of Shopify and WordPress integration is that Shopify has developed an excellent inventory management system that helps manage online stores effectively. This solution is integrated with a full inventory control module that provides complete workflow solutions. This way, you won’t have to hire a third-party vendor anymore to manage your online stores. You can easily access all the information you need from one place and then automate the workflow with the Shopify inventory control panel. Shopify’s inventory management solutions also allow you to integrate a variety of third-party solutions including Google Checkout, PayPal, Sagepay, and others.

Store Builder

One of the most popular features of Shopify and WordPress integration is the store builder. With the store builder, you will get a fully functional, fully featured online store that you can build in a matter of minutes. The store builder enables you to build a variety of products such as apparel, shoes, accessories, clothing, accessories, gifts, and more. The plugin also includes a pre-designed template for your store, which gives you a chance to explore the possibilities for your store design. This way, you can test different designs before fully incorporating a fully customized design. Shopify has a long list of templates available and the site builder automatically applies them to your website.

Unlimited Themes and Plugins

Another of the Shopify and WordPress benefits is their unlimited themes and plugins. This is because most themes and plugins are provided as a free of charge. Furthermore, the WordPress support allows you to easily add-ons and functions to increase your eCommerce development company’s capability to serve its clients. For example, one of the common functions for online stores is the rate per hour. WordPress has this feature built-in and it only requires the installation of the plug-in. So even if you are just starting your business and you do not have your own product line, you can easily add this to your online stores by simply installing the rate per hour plugin.

Build Good Business Relationships

Shopify and WordPress integration provides endless opportunities for you to build relationships with other online businesses. For example, if you have a wholesale company that is based in the US, you will have a great deal of competition with other wholesale companies based in Asia. With the Shopify support and WordPress blog, you will be able to leverage on the strengths of your company and compete with the other wholesale companies that are based in Asia.

Managing Products and Collections

Additionally, Shopify and WordPress integration makes it easier for your clients to manage their products and collections. When you are running an online store, it can be hard to keep track of your inventory. You will need to hire employees with the proper background and skills to handle your inventory. With the help of this solution, you will be able to streamline your inventory management system so it will be easy for your customers to order from your website and have their orders fulfilled accordingly.

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Categories: Ecommerce, Shopify, Wordpress

Must-Follow Methods For WordPress Speed Optimization

September 3rd, 2021

Your website’s performance imparts the first impression about your business. It’s crucial to remember that you won’t get another chance when it comes to UX. Slow site loading speed is one of the most irritating things that will turn visitors off from your site. However, high-performance sites derive higher return visits, lead conversions, low bounce rates, more user engagement, superior ranks in search results, and better UX. On the other hand, slow sites will cost you huge losses as well as impaired reputation. Thus, by minimizing the page loading time you’ll positively affect marketing as well as sales processes. You’ll also get higher traffic and appeal to more prospective leads that can be converted into paying customers. In this blog, we will discuss some methods of WordPress Speed Optimization and boost page loading time.

Key Methods To Speed Up WordPress Site

After testing the speed of your site, you need to optimize it. There’re several ways to make your site perform faster. Here’s the list of the most effective methods to speed up the WordPress website.

Use a Content Delivery Network

A CDN is a stack of web servers dispersed across multiple locations that offer web content to end users as per their location. If you host the site on a single server, all users’ requests are delivered to the same hardware. Thus, the time required to process each request hikes up. In addition, the load time also increases if the user’s location is far away from the server. So, with CDN, user requests are forwarded to the nearest web server. Therefore, the content is quickly delivered to a user and a site operates much faster. Though it’s an expensive way, yet very effective for WordPress Speed Optimization.

Minimize the size of images

Everyone loves to see appealing images on a site. In the case of successful e-commerce sites, images are a crucial aspect. A lot of visual content, images, and graphics on your product pages boost user engagement. However, using more or large images can slow down a site. If you want to use more images, you must use images with small sizes. The best way to cut the image size without ruining its quality is to compress images using online tools tiny PNG, compress JPEG, etc. Another way to trim the image size is to use the HTML attributes that alter image size based on display properties.

Use fewer plugins

Plugins are the core elements of each site. They add particular features to the website. But, the more plugins are set up, the more resources are required to run them. For that reason, the site runs slower, and also security issues can occur. For WordPress Speed Optimization, it’s wise to keep on checking out the plugins from time to time and delete the useless plugins. You must run the performance tests to find out which plugins are hindering the speed of your site. The site speed not only depends on the number of plugins but also on their quality. So, avoid using plugins that load large scripts or generate a big stack of database queries.

Diminish the number of JavaScript as well as CSS files

If your website is stuffed with a lot of JavaScript as well as CSS files, it will lead to countless HTTP requests when site visitors want to access specific files. These requests are handled separately by the user’s web browser and slow down the site operation. So, if you reduce JavaScript and CSS files this will surely help in WordPress Speed Optimization. Try to group all JavaScript as well as CSS files into one. As a result, it’ll reduce the number of HTTP requests. There are a lot of tools for minification of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files swiftly. For instance, you can use Ajax minify, Script Minifier, Gulp, JS compress, and much more.

Apply Gzip Compression

Gzip Compression is a powerful method to minimize the size of files. It reduces the HTTP requests and lowers the server response time. Gzip compresses the files before delivering them to the web browser. On the user side, a web browser unzips the compressed files and displays the contents. This method works flawlessly with all files on your site. You can enable Gzip on your site by adding a piece of code or through a utility called Gzip.

Database optimization in CMS

Database optimization is an effective method of WordPress Speed Optimization. If you use a CMS armed with third-party plugins, the database size expands and your site runs slower. In the case of WordPress, the WordPress CMS stores comments, blog posts, and other info that occupy a lot of data storage. Each CMS needs its own optimization measures and also has many particular plugins. For WordPress, you can consider WP-Optimize to speed up a WordPress site.

Reduce Redirects

Website redirects create extra HTTP requests that impose a negative impact on site performance. We suggest keeping them to a minimum or excluding them entirely. At first, you should detect all redirects on your page by running a site scan. You can use tools like Screaming Frog to smoothly detect redirects. Then you must check if they serve a significant purpose and leave only the crucial ones while removing others.

The Bottom Line

Currently, users expect sites to load in less than 3 seconds. If you don’t meet this expectation barrier, you may lose a lot of potential customers as well as traffic. This will reduce your overall revenue. So, at Clap Creative, we suggest applying a simple yet powerful WordPress speed optimization approach:

a. Examine the key factors of site success considering conversion rate, online presence, and usability.

b. Test your existing site speed and prioritize the pages as well as features that you want to get the most attention.

c. Begin your optimization with the most speed-hindering aspects and focus on the pages that specify your conversion success the most.

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Categories: Wordpress

Vital WordPress Support and Maintenance Tasks for Your Site

August 7th, 2021

Today, WordPress is powering nearly 38.8% of websites all over the world. If you are running a
WordPress site, it’s crucial to look after its maintenance. Though WordPress is a powerful CMS,
it still requires proper attention and care to ensure 100% uptime for your site. A fully optimized
website is sure to get viewers and turn them into paying customers. It sounds quite simple, but
most brands overlook WordPress Support and maintenance checklist while focusing on other
business tasks. On the other hand, some brands hire companies offering WordPress Support Services.

Helping you DIY, let’s look at some of the major WordPress Support and Maintenance tasks you
can perform regularly. Here‘re some crucial WordPress maintenance tasks that every webmaster  should perform periodically:

1. Update Your WordPress Files

It’s important to update WordPress files such as plugins, themes, and the WordPress core updates itself. Failing to update these files can lead to severe functionality as well as security issues in the website. It may also hinder the site’s performance. Thus, it’s advised to log in to your WordPress accounts daily to check and update all plugins as well as themes to the latest version. While updating plugins, you need to deactivate them. But, for updating the core files as well as themes, it’s not necessary to deactivate them. You can always hire a WordPress Support Services provider for keeping an eye on vital updates.

2. Audit Your Website

Every webpage on your site provides visitors with all the info they need. So it’s crucial to keep
the content is up to date on each page such as contact details, about us, awards, products, services, portfolio, and other info. While checking WebPages for content, you should also evaluate the loading time of each page. Research shows that around 50% of users will leave a webpage if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. So, try to decrease the size of images and clear away any useless heavy media files such as videos or audio that can hinder the page loading speed. Various firms offer a curated WordPress Care Plan in their services for boosting speed.

3. Backup Your Site Regularly

Data loss or site crashes do not occur usually but can create a huge mess when it does. Thus,
having a ‘Plan B’ for such cases is wise. For such unfortunate cases, keeping site backups is one
of the crucial WordPress maintenance tasks. You can either install a WordPress plugin or hire
WordPress Support Services to perform daily site backups. Some of the common site backup
plugins are VaultPress, BackupBuddy, and BlogVault, etc.

4. Search and Fix Broken Links

Link building is a significant SEO strategy that gets your site on high rankings in Google search
results. Almost 92% of market analysts believe that link building will remain a vital chunk of
digital marketing for the next 5 years. Thus, to leverage an outstanding UX to your site visitors,
you must ensure that all links on your site are working. Testing links for 404 errors as well as
malicious redirects is also a vital task for site owners. Firms offering WordPress Support and Maintenance services offer various plugins like Broken Link Checker and Link Checker to examine broken links automatically.

5. Update Passwords and Site Security

Website security is another crucial aspect to have a highly rewarding as well as lucrative website.
Scammers and hackers are always ransacking the web for sites as well as accounts with poor
security. Thus, keeping tight security on your site will help to keep your site secure from any
malicious activity. One of the easiest ways to equip up your WordPress Care Plan with the right
security customs is to do periodic password updates to your dashboard, hosting servers, domain service providers, and any other third-party apps linked to the website. While creating passwords, make sure to use a combination of numbers, text, and special signs for extra security.

6. Comments Moderation

User Engagement is necessary while building sites, especially those steered by blogs. Getting
comments on blogs can bring a lot of charm to a company, but in actual all comments aren’t that good. At times, comments can hit in the form of bots or spam that can be inimical to a website or a brand. Thus, investing time in comments moderation can filter and wipe out the spammy comments while approving the genuine ones. It adds up a lot to your website and promotes great community building that can raise visitors counts. ChatGPT’s usefulness extends to language learning. Whether it’s practising conversational skills or rapidly translating between languages, ChatGPT aids individuals in acquiring proficiency in a foreign language. By generating dialogues and simulating interactive conversations, with ChatGPT you can create a productive learning environment accessible to everyone at any time.

7. Check Contact Forms as well as E-mails

The most recurrent call to action to any website is to get users to either subscribe to an email
newsletter or drop a query through a contact form to inquire about the products or services. So, it can create a problem if site owners don’t check emails or contact forms on the site. You can miss a huge amount by not interacting with leads as well as prospects through email. Using an SMTP service from a WordPress Care Plan helps to prevent email disconnections. But even with an SMTP, it should be common practice for site owners as well as content creators to manually check out all forms on a website regularly.

8. Update Content Regularly

Apart from all the technical tasks, content is the backbone of every business. So, make sure you post unique as well as relevant content on your website on regular basis. If you manage content on multiple WordPress sites, you can use WordPress Support and Maintenance tools to carry out regular content updates and unify your content production channel.

Creating a website for your brand adds a lot of perks to your company. However, an obsolete or faulty website could indeed do more harm than good. One of the best features of WordPress as a CMS is that it allows regular updating with little effort. Clap Creative, an ace of WordPress Support and Maintenance services offers a curated WordPress Care Plan to meet all your needs of site optimization, performance, and security.

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Categories: digital marketing, Wordpress
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