What Is WordPress?

The post What Is WordPress? appeared first on HostGator Blog.

If you’ve been researching ways to build your first website, then you’ve undoubtedly come across WordPress. 

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) in the world. It currently powers over one-third of the internet.

But what exactly is WordPress?

At the core, it’s software that powers your website. It controls how your site looks, functions, and performs. It’s what will power the backend of your site, it’s how you’ll publish pages and posts, and it controls how your site will look and how your visitors will interact with your site. 

But, there’s still a lot more to WordPress than that.

Below we’ll dive into what WordPress is, its history, and how you can get started with your own WordPress site today. 

What is WordPress?

WordPress is open-source software that can be used to create and manage websites. It can help you build anything from a simple blog, to an eCommerce store, a business website, a creative portfolio, and anything else under the sun.

Even if you’ve never built a website, it’s not a problem with WordPress. You don’t need to have any design or programming skills to end up with a professional website.

Your site’s design will be taken care of by your WordPress themes, of which you’ll find thousands to choose from. If you want to add more features to your website, then you can do that via the plugin library.

WordPress started as blogging software but has since grown into a full-fledged site builder. 

It’s currently used by sites such as BBC America, TechCrunch, and Vogue.

Here are a few things that make WordPress completely awesome:

• It’s completely free and open source. All you need is a domain name and web hosting, and you can build your site.
• There’s a built-in community. It’s a project created by thousands of volunteers around the world. You’ll find useful tutorials, help, and guides all across the web. 
• It’s flexible and highly customizable. You can build any kind of website, a massive tech blog, a small online store, a business website, a portfolio website, and more. 
• You can quickly add new features. The plugin library is enormous, and with a few clicks, you can add nearly any feature you desire.
• Your site will look good and perform great. WordPress is fast and built to help you rank. With thousands of beautiful themes, your site will look good across any device or screen size.

The Mission of WordPress

The goal of WordPress is to help democratize publishing. WordPress was designed to help make it possible for anyone to share their services, ideas, stories, or products with the world.

This is why the software is open-source, easy to use, setup, and built on the back of a helpful community. 

Not only is it straightforward to get started with WordPress and create your first website or blog, but this software can grow with you and your site. It powers everything from massive content sites receiving millions of monthly visitors, to brand new niche-focused bloggers who just bought their first domain a week ago. 

The History of WordPress

WordPress was created back in 2003. It’s the successor of a project known as b2/cafelog. It was created to fill the gap for a personal publishing framework built on PHP and MySQL. Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little created the original version of WordPress. 

But, since the software is open-source, a lot of the project has been built by a community of contributors. Today the face of WordPress is Matt Mullenweg, who is also the founder of Automattic.

This company has developed numerous plugins that you probably use on your site and operates WordPress.com, the paid version of WordPress. 

The first version of WordPress (WordPress 0.7) was released back in 2003. Since that initial release, there have been a series of releases which bring us to the most recent version, Gutenberg. 

The initial release helped to lay the foundation for the modern CMS we know and use today. It included things like comment moderation, the ability to upgrade the software, permalinks that were search engine-friendly, support for multiple post tags and categories, and more. 

As you can see the WordPress history is a long and fruitful one. Here are some key highlights related to the development of the platform:

• In 2003, Automattic brought on Toni Schneider as CEO, the former Oddpost CEO and Yahoo! Executive
• The first WordCamp was held that same year 
• Automattic purchased Gravatar (you see these avatars present today in the comments section of WordPress)
• In 2008 the WordPress Theme Directory was launched (today this offers thousands of free WordPress themes you can download)
• WordPress 3.0 was released in 2010 and helped to make the transition from blogging system to full-fledged CMS
• In 2015, the eCommerce plugin WooCommerce was acquired by Automattic
• 2018 brought us the release of the Gutenberg editor, which provides users with an intuitive block editing experience

You can expect WordPress to continue to evolve and push the boundaries for what you can do with a CMS. 

How WordPress Works

WordPress is an open-source CMS, which means it’s free to install on your website. 

There are two versions of WordPress: the self-hosted WordPress.org and the paid version, WordPress.com. The entirety of this post is about the self-hosted version of WordPress.

The self-hosted version is going to be the primary version of WordPress you’ll most likely be using. This version offers you more freedom and flexibility, and access to the full suite of plugins and themes out there.

Once you sign up for a hosting account, you’ll have the ability to install WordPress on your site. This is done through a variety of one-click software applications that help you install WordPress in a few clicks.

After you’ve installed WordPress, then you can begin customizing your site by installing a theme, adding a few plugins, or writing a blog post.

The entire process is highly intuitive and easy enough for beginners to build a fully-functional professional website. 

5 Benefits of WordPress

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems in the world. Its widespread use is not only due to its flexibility, but because of all the benefits it brings to site owners.

Here are some of the most significant benefits you’ll realize when you use WordPress to power your site:

1. WordPress is Easy to Use (Even For Total Beginners)

Even though WordPress is a powerful and flexible content management system, it’s still very beginner-friendly. Most hosts also make it very easy to install WordPress; all it takes is a few clicks to install the CMS on your site. 

Once WordPress is installed, then you can start customizing your site by installing a theme and adding plugins.

Overall, building a site with WordPress isn’t as easy as using a website builder, but there are so many helpful tutorials online that if you do run into a problem with your site, you won’t be stuck for long. 

The best thing about WordPress is that even if the learning curve is a little higher in the beginning, you’ll be amazed at what you can do in time. There’s no ceiling on what you’ll be able to accomplish with your site. 

2. WordPress is Highly Customizable and Flexible

WordPress can be used to build any kind of website. From large content-driven sites that have thousands of articles to small business websites that only have a handful of pages.

The theme and plugin library is so vast that you can add virtually any feature to your website, just by installing a WordPress plugin. Some plugins can help you add new features to your site, while others can completely transform your site, like how WooCommerce can help transform your website into a full-fledged eCommerce store. 

Plus, no existing design or programming skills are required to use the plugins. 

When it comes to your theme, it’s also easy to find the perfect theme for your site. There are more general themes that can be customized to your liking, or you can find a niche-specific theme that’s perfectly suited to your site. 

Plus, WordPress can grow with your site as well. Even if you’re starting with a smaller site, WordPress can literally support sites that get millions of visitors per month.

3. WordPress is Free and Open Source

Another great thing about WordPress is that it’s entirely free. This can help to keep costs low as you’re building your first website. The only thing that you need to pay for is a domain name and hosting.

There are thousands of different free themes and plugins that you can use to build out your website too. Of course, you’ll also find a massive library of premium themes and plugins available as well, but you can build a professional website quite nearly for free. 

The open-source nature of the software makes it so anyone in the world can contribute to the software, hence the massive rise of the free theme and plugin market.

4. WordPress is SEO Friendly

A lot of websites are highly dependant on search engine rankings. There’s a lot that goes into SEO and ranking highly in the search engines, but having a well-designed site with clean code and clear organizational structure can help you rank.

WordPress sites tend to rank higher in the search engines than other styles of websites. 

Plus, WordPress is very SEO-friendly right out of the gate. Not only that, but there are some excellent SEO plugins that can take your efforts even further, like Yoast SEO.

All you have to do is install and activate the plugin, and it’ll analyze your existing posts and give you recommendations for how you can further improve your onsite SEO. 

5. Managing Your Site is a Breeze

No matter what you’re trying to do with your site, WordPress makes the management process incredibly simple. First off, there are built-in updates, so all you have to do is literally login to your dashboard and click a button, and your site will be up to date.

Managing your growing content library is also incredibly easy. Even with a 1000+ posts on your blog, you can easily update, manage, and create new content. WordPress is built to scale, so no matter how large your site gets. Running a website with a dozen posts will be just as easy as one that contains hundreds. 

It’s no wonder some of the largest blogs in the world have decided to use WordPress to help manage and scale their blogs. 

This is the additional text requested for https://www.hostgator.com/blog/what-is-wordpress/. 

WordPress Pros and Cons

While WordPress is the most popular content management system on the market, it’s not the only one. How do you know if WordPress is right for you?

Do what anyone does when they need to make an important decision. Make a list of the pros and cons and see which list better suits your fancy. 

Pros of WordPress

We’ve already talked about the benefits of WordPress, but let’s take a closer look at some of the additional advantages of choosing WordPress as your content management system.

1. WordPress is affordable

Shared hosting plans for WordPress websites start out at $2.95/month and come with unmatched functionality. 

You can host several WordPress websites under one shared hosting plan, you get a free domain, you have site security, and unmetered bandwidth, to name a few.

2. WordPress has hundreds of plugins

If you can dream it on your WordPress website, you can probably do it via one of the hundreds of WordPress free, paid, or third-party plugins. Plugins for WordPress help you design your website without having to do any coding. 

By installing a plugin and clicking a few buttons, you can add social shares to your website, optimize your blog posts for SEO, capture email subscribers for your list, and so much more.

3. WordPress is responsive

Have you ever looked up a website on a tablet or your phone, only to find out you can’t see anything and it’s not optimized for mobile viewing? If so, you know how annoying it is.

New WordPress themes are responsive and optimized for mobile viewing. This means you don’t have to worry about website visitors not being able to see your content when they visit your website via a smart device.

4. WordPress is a DIY software

While you certainly can hire a web developer to build your website, you don’t have to if you opt for WordPress.

WordPress is so intuitive and easy to use that even novice website owners can learn how to build and customize their website.

Cons of WordPress

WordPress is my personal favorite content management system, but it would be naive to say that there aren’t some disadvantages. Here’s a closer look at the cons of WordPress.

1. You have to install updates

I have a few WordPress websites, and sometimes I go a month or two without posting a new blog post. Whenever I log in to my WordPress dashboard, there is always a request for either a software, theme, or plugin update.

To keep a healthy WordPress website, you have to install all the necessary updates. If you’re a more vigilant website owner, then this won’t be a problem.

2. Customizing themes can be difficult

WordPress comes with several beautiful themes. The advantage is you don’t have to do much customization to make these themes look awesome. However, if you do want to customize them, sometimes it can be difficult to figure out how to make the theme do exactly what you want it to do.

3. Open source can lead to vulnerabilities

WordPress is an open-source content management system, which means anyone can contribute to the software. 

This is mostly an awesome feature, but it can open the door to some potential vulnerabilities. Just make sure that you take extra precautions to protect your WordPress website, and you should be fine.

Getting Started With WordPress Today

Even with all of the features that are packed into WordPress it’s very easy to get started. If you decide to host your site with HostGator, then the process is even easier.

Once you sign up for a hosting account and fire up your hosting dashboard, installing WordPress will only take a couple of clicks.

All you have to do to get started is click on ‘Build a New WordPress Site’:

This will fire up the software that will automatically install WordPress on your site. 

All you have to do is input the domain that you want to transform into a WordPress site and enter a few more details about your site.

Once the software is finished you’ll have a WordPress site you can start customizing.

After WordPress is up and running on your site you can access your site by navigating to “yourdomain.com/wp-admin”. Enter your username and password and you’ll be taken to the backend of your site.

This will be your home base for customizing your site, installing themes and plugins, publishing pages and blog posts, and keeping your site up to date. In time, you’ll become a master of your WordPress dashboard. 

Hopefully, by now you understand the power of WordPress, it’s history, and how far it’s come. WordPress is a truly powerful CMS that’s the number one choice for most new website builders, and your new website can be next!

Find the post on the HostGator Blog

source https://www.hostgator.com/blog/what-is-wordpress/

7 Best WordPress Donation Plugins

The post 7 Best WordPress Donation Plugins appeared first on HostGator Blog.

Charitable giving is an opportunity for people to support their favorite causes and organizations. So much so that “American individuals, bequests, foundations, and corporations gave an estimated $427.71 billion to U.S. charities in 2018,” according to Giving USA 2019.

Whether you’re a non-profit or small business, your organization can start accepting online donations on your website. Plugins make it easy to add a donation option to your checkout cart.

Try one of the seven WordPress donation plugins below. 

1. PayPal Donation

Community engagement is key for small businesses to connect with a growing consumer base who are interested in socially responsible companies. You can give back and boost your brand presence through online campaigns with non-profits.

PayPal offers one reason why you should accept donations online: “Utilizing a secure online payment provider allows for currency conversions, opening the door to accept funds from around the globe.” That way, your campaign isn’t limited to your local area.

The PayPal Donation plugin offers you the flexibility to place the donation button anywhere on your site. It supports 18 different languages and 25 currencies. Also, you can test the functionality of the button before you go live using a PayPal Sandbox account.

2. GiveWP

Research shows online giving grew by 12.1% in 2018. Take advantage of this trend by setting up online donations on your WordPress website. 

GiveWP is a donation platform optimized for online giving. With this WordPress plugin, your non-profit website can accept donations through customizable forms, manage specific donor profiles, and track donation statistics. It also integrates with a variety of third-party payment gateways and marketing tools.

For example, you can build a donation form with progress bars and custom fields to match your donors’ needs. Then, you can access a complete history of each individual donor and automatically email tax-deductible receipts. There’s also a feature to measure your campaign performance to gauge which forms are performing the best across your website.

3. Smart Donations

Strategic collaborations between non-profits and businesses help drive more donations while increasing goodwill for the organizations involved. As a small business owner, consider partnering with a local non-profit to spread awareness about a cause.

When selecting a partner, you’ll want to evaluate their reputation and the impact of their work. Charitable contributions can be more impactful if their mission aligns with your business.

Smart Donations is an all-in-one WordPress plugin that adds a donation button to your website. Choose from many different button styles, including a text box donation option allowing your customers to decide how much they want to donate.

4. Charitable

Online resources are considered 20% more useful than direct mail when it comes to influencing donors. With online giving, you give potential donors the convenience to learn about the specific cause and donate based on their schedules.

Charitable helps you collect online donations without ever charging you transaction fees. With this top-rated WordPress donation plugin, you can create fundraising campaigns in a matter of minutes. Create a form to accept ongoing donations, raise funds for a time-sensitive need, or collect donations for a specific fundraising goal.

Without hiring a developer, your organization can accept donations through PayPal and automatically track a donation’s status. Charitable is also GDPR-ready with a feature to export and erase personal data in WordPress. On top of that, you can send customized emails to donors with unique subject lines and content.

5. SKT Donation

For small businesses, charitable giving is a chance to make a real difference in your community. Molly St. Louis, an Inc. contributor and an executive-level creative consultant, agrees:

“Charitable donations help better your community, and the public will notice if a company is making a real effort to improve its surroundings. Your company’s charitable donations could help improve schools or parks, giving children safe places to learn and play,” 

Get involved in your community by hosting online fundraisers on your site. With the SKT Donation plugin, you can facilitate donations during the customer checkout process. You can accept donations using PayPal or credit and debit cards through the 2Checkout gateway. 

You’ll get access to a donor list showing the amount given by each individual. Plus, it only takes five minutes to set up.

6. Donorbox

Technology has become an integral part of most people’s lives. We bring our mobile devices with us everywhere—grocery stores, salons, and restrooms (yikes!). This behavior is reflected in how we use technology to donate. Research uncovered that mobile-responsive donation pages yield 34% more donations.

You can achieve the same level of success in your organization with Donorbox. This plugin helps you embed a donation form on your WordPress website. You can provide set amounts for donors to select or allow donors to specify their own amount. In addition, Donorbox forms are optimized for mobile devices. 

7. Woo Donations

The goal of a fundraiser is to collect as much money as possible for your desired cause. So, it makes sense to streamline the donation process for potential donors.  You don’t want people taking unnecessary steps to donate. Paige Kutilek, a crowdfunding expert, writes:

“While this is obvious, it can be easy to forget: Make it easy for people to make a donation. Include the link to your fundraiser in your ask, and don’t be afraid to point out exactly where the donation button is located on your fundraiser.”

If you’re using WooCommerce, try Woo Donations to display a donation button on your checkout page. Donors can choose the amount they wish to give, and this plugin allows you to customize the location, color, and text of the donation button to fit your brand.

Start Accepting Online Donations with WordPress Plugins

Supporters are seeking new ways to donate to your fundraisers. Make the process simple by accepting donations on your website.

Try one of the above-mentioned WordPress donation plugins to get started today.

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source https://www.hostgator.com/blog/best-wordpress-donation-plugins/

7 Simple UX Tips to Instantly Elevate Your Website

The post 7 Simple UX Tips to Instantly Elevate Your Website appeared first on HostGator Blog.

When visitors land on your website, it only takes a few seconds for them to decide whether to stay or leave. So, it’s imperative that your website makes a good first impression.

An effective website design enhances the visitor experience. Your site should make it easy for visitors to read and find content and provide ample white space and images. As a result, you’ll keep visitors engaged with your content.

Check out these seven simple UX tips to elevate the look of your website.

1. Embrace white space

White space is the empty space between the elements on your page. You can have white space between text, graphics, or any other media. 

The purpose of white space is to guide your visitors to specific parts of your site. It also makes it easier for visitors to read your content. John Hughes, a blogging addict and WordPress fanatic, agrees:

“The point here is that using enough white space on your web pages is key to making them both visually appealing and easy to navigate. Having enough white space between elements has also been repeatedly shown to increase reading comprehension.”

When designing your website, consider adding margins or padding and using line-spacing within the text. That way, your site isn’t cluttered, and you can maintain your visitors’ attention. 

2. Add high-quality images

According to Venngage, 60.8% of marketers believe the use of visual content was absolutely necessary for their marketing strategy. Images play a vital role in helping visitors understand more about your brand. 

Before adding your images, you’ll want to follow a few best practices. For starters, adjust the image contrast to make it brighter. Dark images often get overlooked when visitors scan your website. 

Next, resize your images to fit the column width of your blog. Visitors shouldn’t have to squint to see your image, and alternatively, the image shouldn’t expand across an entire page. When resizing, keep the proportions the same to not distort your images.

The final tip is to optimize your images to avoid slow load times on your website. You can keep the visual quality high and the file size low by using a tool like Optimizilla.

3. Consider visual and typographic hierarchies

Visual hierarchy informs visitors where to look on your webpage. It signals to the readers what they should read first. Using typography is one type of visual cue to achieve this goal. 

Typographic hierarchy helps contrast different page elements. You can do this task through the use of font, font size, capital and lowercase letters, placement, and color.

Let’s say you’re announcing a contest on your website. You’ll want the prize of $20,000 at the top of your page in bold, red font. This typography will catch the eye of your visitors and encourage them to keep reading. Here’s more insight from Daniella Alsche, a content marketer for G2:

“The larger an element is, the more likely we are to see it, moving it towards the top of the hierarchy. Elements that aren’t as important can be made smaller to reduce visibility and emphasis. This moves these elements towards the bottom of the visual hierarchy.”

4. Maintain color consistency

Visual consistency is one major UX design principle. It increases the likelihood that a visitor will recognize your brand—which is important when marketing across multiple channels. 

Color improves brand recognition by up to 80%. So, you’ll want to use the same color palette on your product packaging and website. Consistent colors will allow potential customers to identify your brand quickly and facilitate the shopping experience. 

Having a hard time selecting the right colors? Muzli Colors by Invision offers an easy-to-use color palette generator to help you pick the perfect combination of colors. This site also offers recommended color presets like the ones shown below. 

If your brand is fairly new, don’t be afraid to make adjustments when necessary. Your brand colors should evolve as your business grows.

5. Place key details above the fold

Above-the-fold in web design refers to the content at the top of your page. It’s what your visitors see first before they scroll down.

Your above-the-fold content should highlight your brand’s value proposition. What makes your company unique? Why should visitors buy from you? Sharon Hurley Hall, a professional writer for more than 25 years, explains: 

“First impressions are crucial. If your ‘above the fold’ website content doesn’t grab your visitors’ attention the second they land on your site, they won’t bother to stick around any longer. But if you get their attention, they’ll stick around, subscribe, and buy.”

One professional tip is to include a compelling image in your above-the-fold design. You can add a high-quality photo or a one-of-kind graphic that matches the color scheme of your brand.

6. Use standard design conventions

Research found that 75% of website credibility comes from design. Visitors have a certain level of expectation when coming to your website. Standard design conventions help visitors understand what actions to take. 

For instance, your visitors expect the name of your site at the top of your homepage along with the main navigation bar. Your homepage also should include a hero image with a welcome message to greet your visitors. As individuals scroll down the page, they should receive more details about your business. Here’s an example from ColorLib:

Deviating from standard conventions often causes mishaps in the user experience. So, you’ll want to stick to what your visitors know, rather than experimenting with unknown design elements.

7. Design compelling calls to action

A call to action helps visitors take the desired step on your website. It can appear in the form of a button, a link, or even an image. 

You want visitors to take action to make a purchase, subscribe to a newsletter, or maybe watch a video. So, your goal is to design a persuasive call to action. Meiling Wu, a marketer, writer, and entrepreneur, suggests:

“Make it easy to find so that it will stand out from other links. Use bold colors that stand out from background colors, try to use colors that you never used anywhere else on the page.”

In addition, use an imperative statement, rather than a long descriptive text. You’re aiming for words, like: “Get started now” or “Create an account.”

Enhance the Design of Your Website With These UX Tips

The appearance of your website impacts the visitor experience. You can elevate your site’s design with white space, color consistency, and attractive calls to action. 

Find the post on the HostGator Blog

source https://www.hostgator.com/blog/simple-ux-tips-website/

How to Build Your Vacation Rental Website [6-Step Guide]

The post How to Build Your Vacation Rental Website [6-Step Guide] appeared first on HostGator Blog.

Do you have a gorgeous mountain cabin, a beach house, or a country cottage that you only visit a couple times a year?

If this describes you, then renting out your vacation home might be the perfect side hustle for you.

Renting out a vacation home is a solid way to make gobs of cash, and there’s an added bonus. It’s mostly a hands-off business. You can hire someone to manage the property, clean it, and maintain it for you when you’re not there.

If this sounds like a dream, the first step to getting started is setting up a website. This article will review why you need a website for your vacation rental, and how you can set one up with HostGator.

Why You Need a Website for Your Vacation Rental

It’s never a bad idea to list your rental on sites like Airbnb and Vrbo. However, you should also create an individual website for your property.

Here are the reasons why:

• You can take direct bookings. Did you know that 65% of guests prefer to book directly with the provider rather than using OTAs (Online Travel Agencies)? Not only will you secure more business with your own website, but you don’t have to share a cut with anyone.

• You create online credibility. The more places your vacation rental exists online, the more credibility you establish. Not to mention, savvy vacationers will often look for a property on an OTA portal, and then try to find the property online at a better price point.

• You build your brand. Let’s say listing one property goes extremely well. When you’re ready to expand, you’ll already have an established website presence that people know and trust. It’s a win-win.

It’s also affordable and easy to set a website up with HostGator.

How to Build Your Vacation Rental Website Quickly with Gator Website Builder

You’re excited about renting out your vacation home, but you may not be jazzed about building a website. We get it, and that’s why we want to share some good news with you.

When you build a website with HostGator’s Website Builder, you don’t need a lick of web design experience. HostGator has already done all the hard work for you and provides pre-designed, customizable templates. 

All you need to get your website up and running is to follow six easy steps. Here’s how to get started.

Step 1: Pick a hosting plan for your vacation rental website

The Gator Website Builder has three hosting plans available. Which one should you choose for your vacation rental website?

The eCommerce plan is for entrepreneurs that are looking to sell products or services online. This package comes with full eCommerce functionality, which may be useful if you plan to take payments and bookings through your website.

The starter plan includes a free domain, 200+ customizable templates, a drag-and-drop editor, cloud hosting, and website analytics.

The premium plan has everything the starter plan has, but also includes priority support. If you know you’ll need priority support while creating and maintaining your website, then opt for the most recommended package—the premium package. 

Once you’ve picked your plan, click “buy now” and you can set up your account.

Step 2: Pick a domain name for your vacation rental website

Every website needs a domain name. To choose your free domain name, all you have to do is type something in the “get domain” box. 

If your top choice for your vacation rental website isn’t available, then select another until you find one that is available.

Pro tip: If you can, try to choose a domain name that includes a location-specific keyword. This may help online searchers find your property.

Step 3: Create your HostGator account

Once you have selected a domain name for your vacation rental, it’s time to connect your HostGator account.

Enter your email address or connect via Facebook. Then, enter your payment information, and your account is official.

Step 4: Pick a template for your vacation rental website

Another advantage of HostGator is it comes with more than 200 professionally-designed templates. This means you don’t have to design your website or know how to code.

All you have to do is pick a template that you like and customize it with the drag and drop builder, and add your unique content.

Step 5: Add pages and content to your vacation rental side hustle website

Once you have selected the perfect template for your side hustle website, you can start customizing your pages. Clicking “start editing” will send you to your dashboard. From there, you can add, edit, and delete pages with ease.

For a vacation rental side hustle, here are some pages you may want to include on your website.

• Home. The home page is the first page a vacationer will see when they click on your website link. As such, you should include an image and content that will catch the eye of your website visitors immediately.

• About. This page provides information about you and your vacation rental.

• Gallery. The gallery is one of the most important pages for someone with a vacation rental side hustle. Include professional photos that show how awesome your property is.

• Contact. A contact page helps potential customers reach out to you via email, phone, or contact form.

The drag and drop builder makes it easy to design your pages and add content. All you have to do is point and click. However, if you have any questions, there’s also a free and easy step-by-step guide for reference that you can access at any time.

To access this guide, click the “menu” icon next to the Gator by HostGator logo and select the “getting started tour.”  

Step 6: Review your content and launch your vacation rental website

The last step is to review your website, make any changes, and then publish your vacation rental website. By clicking “preview,” you can see your site in full, and make sure it looks perfect. 

During your preview, review your website and make sure your content is polished, and your images look nice.

If everything looks great, then click the “finish preview” button at the top and then “publish website” at the top of the dashboard. 

Gator Website Builder will present a series of quick steps to help you go live.

Create Your Vacation Rental Website Now

If you’re looking to make some extra money by renting out your vacation home, then it’s time to get your website up and running. 

To get started with your vacation rental website, check out the Gator Website Builder today.

Find the post on the HostGator Blog

source https://www.hostgator.com/blog/build-vacation-rental-website/

Get Set for Shipping During Your Store’s First Holiday Season: Your How-to Guide

The post Get Set for Shipping During Your Store’s First Holiday Season: Your How-to Guide appeared first on HostGator Blog.

So far in our series on How to Rock Your Online Store’s First Holiday Season, we’ve focused on tasks that might make you feel like one of Santa’s elves.

That’s because we’ve been creating cool things for your customers, like holiday promotions, holiday marketing campaigns, gift offers and more. All of this planning can help you bring more customers to your store and get them to buy, so your store can have a great first holiday season. 

Now, it’s time to get out of the elf mindset and into reindeer mode, because once your customers buy from you, you’ve got to make sure their stuff arrives on time. And while you won’t have to entrust your fulfillment to team of flying caribou, holiday logistics can be tricky.

Get them right and you’ll delight your customers and keep them coming back. Get it wrong and you’ll be on your customers’ naughty list.

Figure out your holiday shipping game plan now

New eCommerce store owners are sometimes tripped up by shipping at the holidays, even if they’ve been handling it great until then. Why? Shipping is different during the November-December holiday rush. Here’s what you need to know to be ready and keep your customers happy.

Delivery can take longer

Shipping delays make headlines every holiday season—so much that it would be more newsworthy if everyone’s packages arrived on time. There are three big reasons why shipping takes longer during the holiday sales peak.

1. More packages. People are buying more stuff online, so there’s more for carriers to sort, load, transfer and carry the last mile. 
2. More staffing issues. In many places, the holidays coincide with flu season, not to mention the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. That means employees who are already hustling to handle a flood of packages may also be covering for co-workers who are out sick or quarantined. Even with extra temporary workers, it can be a struggle.
3. More weather challenges. Rain, sleet, snow, ice, polar vortices and bomb cyclones can all slow or halt ground and air transportation. 

All of this means your packages need to go out earlier than usual to arrive on time. To make sure that happens, you need to:

Know your carriers’ cutoff dates for ground, expedited and express shipping.

FedEx and USPS post their holiday deadlines in advance, although FedEx tends to put their holiday information out earlier than the post office. 

• FedEx last days to ship for the holidays
• U.S. Postal Service holiday newsroom

UPS is a different beast. The carrier offers a menu of services with rates and delivery times based on your region and the destination of your packages. For example, UPS ground shipping can take anywhere from 1 to three or more days, depending on the distance involved:

Give your store some extra time.

Once you know the last days when your customers can order for each type of delivery you offer, add a day or two to create your store’s deadlines. 

For example, if your store uses FedEx, Dec. 15 is the last day you can ship FedEx Ground for delivery by Dec. 25, 2020. So, let your customers know they need to order by Dec. 13 or 14 for Christmas delivery. That way if you’re swamped with last-minute orders you can still get everything wrapped, boxed and ready for pickup before the carrier deadline. 

Make your shipping deadlines easy to find on your website.

Add a shipping deadline link on each product page. Put a clear explanation in your FAQ and in the checkout process. You can make shipping deadlines part of your marketing, too, if you wish—maybe a series of social posts reminding followers that deadlines are coming up.

Add tracking tools to your store.

In our post on local holiday delivery deals, we covered some apps like Shippo, Route and WooCommerce Shipment Tracking that show your customers where their stuff is. That means less stress for them and fewer customer service calls about shipping for you.

Delivery can be more expensive

Most shippers add surcharges during the holidays, at least for some kinds of parcels and some delivery speeds.

If you’re competing on price and offering free shipping, then that extra cost could push you into money-losing territory. But if you pass along shipping cost increases to your customers, they could be upset. So, you need to:

Know your carrier’s holiday surcharges.

This gets tricky, because some services carry a flat-rate surcharge, while others are based on the size, weight or even number of packages you ship. Each carrier will have its own dates when surcharges apply.

• FedEx surcharge information
• UPS surcharge information
• U.S. Postal Service surcharge information

Adjust your pricing to avoid losing money on free shipping.

You may need to revisit your store’s pricing structure or at least change the pricing on items in your store with especially low margins. 

Make holiday shipping rates clear on your website.

Add this information to your updated holiday shipping deadlines so your customers know what to expect before they order.

Deliveries can be a fraud issue for merchants

One more thing to think about while you build your holiday shipping plan: fraud prevention. It’s a sad fact of business that criminals are always looking for ways to rip merchants off. One of the ways they target online sellers is by exploiting loopholes in the ordering and shipping process. 

Here’s how that can work: A criminal who’s shopping with a stolen credit card orders something expensive from your store and pays extra for overnight delivery. This order gets through your payment processor’s fraud controls because they use the cardholder’s billing and delivery address at checkout, so it looks like the real cardholder is placing the order. 

How does the criminal get the item? After their order is approved, they call or email someone—your customer service team or the shipping carrier—with a plea to reroute the delivery to a new address because they entered the wrong one/found out the recipient is at the new address/etc.

How can you prevent this? 

When you get a rerouting request, the safest approach is to cancel the current order and have the customer order again with the new shipping address. This way, the fraud screening system can re-check the order with the new information. 

Talk to your carriers and find out if they allow your customers to reroute packages after purchase. You want to avoid this if possible, or at least get a notification from the carrier if they’re making a change, so you can review the order and cancel it if it seems fraudulent. 

What’s next?

After you build your shipping plan for the holidays, it’s time to get into the nuts and bolts (or boxes and tape) of order fulfillment. We’ll talk about the best way to set up your holiday order workspace in our next Rock the Holidays post. Stay tuned!

Find the post on the HostGator Blog

source https://www.hostgator.com/blog/ecommerce-holiday-shipping-guide/

Best WordPress Plugins for Graphic Designers [Top 9 Picks]

The post Best WordPress Plugins for Graphic Designers [Top 9 Picks] appeared first on HostGator Blog.

As a graphic designer, you might work directly within WordPress itself, using the CMS to build beautiful websites.

But even if you’re not directly designing within the WordPress ecosystem, it’s a great way for graphic designers to showcase their work in a beautiful and functional environment.

To get the most out of WordPress you’ll want to familiarize yourself with the plugin library. This is how WordPress handles adding new features to your site that aren’t present in your current theme.

Below we dive deep into the nine best WordPress plugins for graphic designers. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out our post on the best WordPress themes for graphic designers, too!

How WordPress Helps Graphic Designers Work Better

If you’re a graphic designer who’s designing WordPress sites, then you can rely on plugins to help improve some elements of the site or even make your design process much simpler. Why continue to replicate a task if you can find a plugin that can do the work for you?

While, if you’re a graphic designer who doesn’t actually work with WordPress sites, but across some other medium, you can still reap the benefits of running a WordPress site. There are all kinds of plugins that can help you build a stunning website that showcases your best work for existing and prospective clients.

9 Best WordPress Plugins for Graphic Designers

There are a ton of different plugins out there in the WordPress marketplace, and sorting through all of the plugins requires a huge amount of time.

Don’t worry. To save you some serious time, we did the digging for you.

Below you’ll find nine of the most useful WordPress plugins that can improve your life and workflow as a graphic designer:

1. Modula Image Gallery

WordPress doesn’t offer a ton of ways to create stunning image galleries right out of the box.

Modula Image Gallery gives you a way to add image galleries to your website. As a designer, this offers you a unique way to show off your creative portfolio, or help create better image galleries for clients.

This WordPress plugin has a wide range of different styles including, lightbox galleries, custom grids, and masonry-style grids. The custom gallery feature gives you the ability to create a gallery that no one has ever seen before on the web.

Plus, all of the galleries you create will be fully responsive, so they’ll look good on any screen size.

The free version of the plugin should be enough for most designers, but there’s also a premium version available.

Upgrading will give you access to features like:

• Ability to add up to 20 images per gallery
• Add videos to your galleries
• Add a filter option to your galleries for an improved user experience
• Access a library of loading animations, hover, and even more lightbox effects

2. Elementor Page Builder

Elementor Page Builder can be used to create a completely unique design for your site, even if you don’t know how to code. This makes it perfect for graphic designers who want to create a stand-out website, but don’t want to mess with code to get everything to work perfectly.

The Elementor plugin basically turns your WordPress site into a drag-and-drop interface, so you can rearrange elements exactly how you like, just by dragging and dropping.

The WordPress design plugin is equipped with dozens of different modules that you can select to add new elements and features to your site. Plus, it lets you design in real-time, so you can see your changes appear the moment you make them, no need to refresh the page.

If you’re looking to unlock even more advanced features, then check out the pro version of the plugin. This gives you access to more design features, customizable widgets, WooCommerce integration, and much more.

3. Qubely

The new Gutenberg editor has changed how you build out pages using WordPress. If you’re a designer who wants to do most of their website building within the Gutenberg editor, then this is worth checking out.

What Qubely does is add a design toolkit on top of the existing editor, taking away the limitations of the new editor and opening up new possibilities for graphic design within WordPress.

Here are some of the core features that this plugin unlocks:

• Predefined content sections
• Customizable rows and columns
• Video backgrounds
• Device-specific responsive controls
• Gradient and background colors
• Built-in animation effects
• Box-shadow effects
• Unlimited access to Google Fonts

If you’re looking to design a certain type of website, then you can explore their library of starter packs, which are niche-oriented designs focused on specific niches.

4. WPtouch 

WPtouch is a complete mobile solution for WordPress sites. The last thing you want is someone to come across your site on a mobile device and not have things load properly.

Even though a lot of websites today are responsive, you can still run into issues with WordPress sites. For example, sometimes they may load correctly on a mobile screen, but they’ll end up taking forever to do so.

This WordPress plugin seeks to solve that issue by generating a fast, lightweight, and good looking mobile version of your site.

With this plugin, you have complete control over the design of your mobile WordPress site. Within the plugin itself, you can customize a variety of different design elements, all without having a touch a line of code.

If you’re already satisfied with how your site performs on a mobile screen, then you might not need to use this plugin. But, if you’ve found your site has issues with the appearance or performance across mobile, then it might be worth testing out.

There’s also a pro version of the plugin available that is equipped with even more features like:

• Enhanced theme selection for blogs, businesses, and WooCommerce
• Options to enhance rich advertising
• Additional options for font choice
• Improved caching options

5. WP Portfolio 

If you’re a graphic designer who wants to showcase their work in the best light possible, then you’ll want to use a WordPress portfolio plugin. There are a ton of different WordPress portfolio plugins to choose from, but one of the best is called WP Portfolio.

This plugin is highly flexible and offers you a ton of different options for displaying your portfolio. Out of the box it’s equipped with over 40 different portfolio themes to choose from.

It was built by the team behind the WordPress theme, Astra, which happens to be one of the best selling WordPress themes of all time. The same level of quality is present in this plugin.

Not only is this plugin equipped with very advanced features, but it’s also very easy to use. You can have your portfolio up and running in a matter of minutes.

It’s equipped with a ton of different layout options and supports image, video, and even website portfolios. If you’re using a page builder to customize your graphic design website, then you’ll be happy to hear that this plugin integrates seamlessly with the most popular page builder plugins out there.

6. Monarch

Monarch helps to solve a unique problem–how do you add elegant social media buttons to an existing website?

This is one of the best social media plugins available for WordPress. A lot of social media plugins are too cluttered or don’t have a design that meshes well with your existing website.

This plugin gives you complete control over the appearance of the social network buttons, something any graphic designer can appreciate, along with the specific networks you’d like to include. There’s also a powerful control panel that makes it easy to customize the appearance of your social buttons.

You can also choose from a handful of different locations including:

• Floating sidebar buttons
• On top of images and videos
• Above or below your blog content
• Automatic pop-up for fly-in

Whether you’re looking to add social media buttons to your WordPress website, or a client site, then this plugin is worth checking out.

7. NextGEN Gallery

NextGEN Gallery is another very popular image gallery plugin. It’s been around since 2007 and gets nearly 1.5 million downloads every year!

It’s a very powerful plugin but remains very easy to use. There are three different types of galleries you can create, including slideshows, thumbnail, and image browser galleries.

Within each of these gallery types, you’ll find a ton of different customization options that you can apply.

Whether you’re looking to create an image gallery of your own graphic design work or create a beautiful gallery for a client project, then this WordPress plugin is worth checking out.

Beyond the free version of the plugin, you’ll find a variety of premium extensions that give you even more features like:

• Additional gallery display options
• A professional film gallery
• Additional scrolling and animation option
• Image commenting and social sharing
• Image protection
• eCommerce and payment integration for purchasing your designs

8. Duplicator 

If you’re a graphic designer who also builds WordPress sites for clients, then you know how tedious it can be having to re-build a client’s site from scratch every single time.

A lot of designers will start with a stock design that they modify. This includes WordPress installation settings, plugin settings, and more.

The Duplicator plugin will automate and simplify this entire process whenever you need to build a new website for one of your graphic design clients. Once you install this plugin all you have to do is clone an existing site, then you can duplicate this whenever you start a new project.

If you design websites and make use of the site staging area you can easily transfer back and forth between a live site and staging area.

This plugin is a must-have in any web designer’s arsenal. Plus, it has over 1 million active installations and a five-star rating.

Designers who want access to even more features can upgrade to the pro version of the plugin, this will give you additional features like:

• Ability to schedule regular website backups
• Sync with popular cloud storage tools
• Migrate an entire multisite WordPress network with a single click
• And much more!

9. Easy Testimonials 

If you’re a graphic designer who’s trying to sell your services on your website, then being able to showcase your testimonials is incredibly important. Testimonials act as social proof and are one of the most powerful factors that’ll convince someone to buy from you, or hire you.

Some themes have native support for testimonials. But, if your theme doesn’t, then the Easy Testimonials plugin will be absolutely necessary. Once you activate this plugin you can add testimonials to any widgetized portion of your site. You can even embed them into your posts and pages.

This WordPress plugin also makes all of your testimonials schema.org compliant, so they’ll display properly in the search engines.

There are a variety of professionally designed themes you can choose from to display your testimonials. Surely, you’ll be able to find a theme that aligns with the design of your website.

This plugin has additional features like:

• Easy testimonial management to ensure you’re displaying the best testimonials at all times
• Random testimonial displaying across your site
• Integrating images with your testimonials
• Adding a star rating to your testimonials
• And much more

The free version should be enough for most designers, but if you want to take the display of your testimonials to the next level you can upgrade to the pro version of the plugin.

This will give you access to even more features like:

• A huge selection of fonts from the Google Fonts library
• Over 100 different pre-existing themes to choose from
• A front-end form to collect testimonials directly from your site
• A testimonial carousel and slideshow

Choosing the Best Graphic Design Plugins For Your WordPress Website

By now you should have a better idea of the types of WordPress plugins you can take advantage of as a graphic designer. Generally, the types of plugins you’ll be using depending upon your role as a designer.

Hopefully, the list of WordPress plugins for graphic designers above has helped to spark your interest. Maybe you’ve even found a plugin or two that you can’t wait to add to your graphic design workflow.

Find the post on the HostGator Blog

source https://www.hostgator.com/blog/best-wordpress-plugins-for-graphic-designers/

Why eCommerce Stores Should Plan Holiday Exclusives Now

Is your new eCommerce business getting ready for its first holiday season? How exciting! And maybe a little bit nerve-wracking, too.

Delivering a holiday sale your customers will love takes a lot of planning, and there’s a learning curve for sure. That’s why we’ve put together this series to help you rock your online store’s first holiday season. 

So far, we’ve looked at how to put together holiday promotions and how to market those promos to bring customers to your online store. Now it’s time to think about how you’re going to wow them when they visit your site—and that means offering special products, package deals and perks to make their holiday shopping easier and more appealing.

Plan Your Holiday Exclusives Now

What makes a good holiday offer? Here are four elements to consider.

1. It’s something your customers will want. Either they’re already buying it from you or it’s like the things they buy from you. For example, if your bestseller is a T-shirt with a picture of ducklings, a T-shirt with a picture of ducklings in Santa hats will probably do well during the holidays. 
2. It’s at the right price point for your shoppers and your bottom line. Even if people do get spendy at the holidays, they still look for deals. Offer that Santa duckling T-shirt at a price that delights your customers and turns a profit.
3. It’s easy and inexpensive to ship. This matters a lot, because shipping is expected to be a bottleneck this holiday season, and shippers sometimes add surcharges during the holidays, which can hurt if you’ve already promised free shipping. So, think t-shirts and tea towels, not garden statues or hand-painted kettlebells.
4. It’s in stock and you have plenty, so you’re not going to run out on Day One of your holiday sale. You don’t want customers coming to your site only to be disappointed.

Get your holiday deals out early

Back in the day, promoting your holiday merch too early in the year made some shoppers grumbly, because they wanted to focus on Halloween and Thanksgiving before moving on to the winter holidays.

Now, though, you can safely launch some, if not all, of your holiday exclusives as early as October. In fact, you probably should.

Why? 

The biggest reason is because Amazon Prime Day has been moved from July to the last quarter of 2020, with many eCommerce watchers predicting that the huge sales event will happen in October. That would turn Prime Day into the de facto holiday sales season kickoff event and divert revenue from other retailers who wait until November to ramp up their holiday deals. 

Another reason to offer your holiday specials early is because last-minute delivery is almost certainly going to be a struggle. Shipping delays were a problem for eCommerce in 2019 and 2018—and that was before the number of eCommerce orders surged in 2020. 

Analysts predict that as many as 700 million gifts are going to arrive late this holiday season, so encourage your customers to snap up your holiday deals before last-minute shoppers and winter weather create logistics chaos.

Think bundles and bulk orders

Sometimes you just need a whole bunch of stuff for yourself or the people on your gift list. You can cater to shoppers who are in bulk-order mode—while encouraging other customers to give it a try.

• Create a buy-more, save-more section filled with items you have in-stock, and bill them as time- and money-saving stocking stuffers or holiday must-haves. 
• Bundle items that people often buy at the same time and offer a discount on the bundle. Retailers expect self-care items (for gifts and self-gifting) and home decor items to sell big this year, so now’s the time to bundle things like scented candles and candleholders, spa towels and luxe soaps, loose-leaf teas and mugs. Other popular categories: cooking, fitness, home office and gardening. 
• The gift box or basket is a bundle dressed up in its holiday best. Set up a gift box section on your site and wow customers with great photos of gift packs that are ready to put under the tree or on a loved one’s holiday table.
• Promote items that you have lots of with an “in-stock now” banner or section. If you’ve been frustrated while looking for sold-out and backordered items online (like nearly half of shoppers this year), you’ll understand the nearly magical appeal of knowing that the item you put in your cart is actually available. Just make sure to remove the banner on items when their stock level gets low.

Debut subscription deals

Got a product that your customers buy month after month? Offer it as a subscription so they can treat their loved ones (and themselves) to a year’s worth of hassle-free deliveries. You can do the same thing with your gift baskets and product bundles. 

You can even encourage your holiday shoppers to load up on subscriptions by offering discounts when they order more than one at a time. For more creative ideas and step by step guidance on subscription offers, check out our post on creating an eCommerce subscription business.

Create holiday-themed gift cards

Do you already offer gift cards? If so, add a holiday motif and feature them on your homepage and in your store’s gift sections. 

No gift cards yet? No time like the “present” to get started. But how? Your payment processor and your ecommerce platform may have options. 

For example, if your store runs on WordPress and WooCommerce, the Gift Cards extension adds digital gift card functionality so your customers can send e-gift cards. Recipients can add cards to their accounts and check their balance easily in your store.

Square offers digital and physical gift card options for its merchants. Its physical card packs range from $0.80 to $2 per card. If you’re doing physical cards, plan ahead – they take one to 15 business days to produce, depending on the option you choose. 

Independent gift card outlets like GiftCards.com offer customized or predesigned Visa cards for small businesses with pre-set dollar amounts that you choose. Make sure you order in plenty of time for production and shipping.

Exclusive stuff for your closest customers

Can you offer some local deals only for delivery within an area near your HQ or warehouse? This kind of holiday offer delivers several things that many shoppers will want this winter: 

• They want to support local businesses.
• They want to know exactly when their order will arrive.
• They want to get it early. 
• They want something unique and different. (Couldn’t we all use something unique and different right about now?)

So maybe offer a deluxe version of your baked goods gift baskets for local delivery only—something that would be too bulky, perishable or heavy to ship for free. Or name your premium spa towel gift bundle after a relaxing local sunset-watching spot. Then set up a deal with a local delivery service or make a plan with your employees to get the goods to customers’ doors as soon as possible after they place their orders. 

We’ll cover your door-to-door local delivery options in detail – along with other ways to sweeten your holiday deals – in our next Rock the Holidays post.

source https://www.hostgator.com/blog/ecommerce-holiday-gift-bundles-planning/

How to Plan and Price Your Special Holiday Delivery Options

The holidays are coming. Are you making a list of things your new eCommerce business needs to do? Checking it twice?

We are, too. Your first holiday sales season as an online store owner can be a lot, so we’re walking through the basic prep you can do now for a successful fourth quarter. 

Our series on how to rock your online store’s first holiday season has covered:

• Planning holiday promotions
• Marketing your holiday promotions
• Creating exclusive offers for holiday shoppers

Serve up special delivery options and perks for your holiday shoppers

Now, let’s look at what can be one of the most fun parts of your store’s holiday experience: giving customers the extras and special options they want for gifting and delivery.

Holiday gift wrap and messages

Unwrapping presents makes the holidays fun. Ordering, wrapping and re-mailing them, not so much. You can help your customers by offering to wrap their purchases and include a message before you ship them out. 

Not skilled at making sharp corners with wrapping paper? Offer to ship gifts in a cute box or bag instead. Be sure to serve up some great photos of the gift wrap you offer and show a couple of wrapped or bagged items ready to go. Then add gift wrap to your checkout menu.

What to charge: Because wrapping paper and gift boxes are inexpensive, you can turn a profit on this quick but crucial service. Many large retailers charge between $4 and $6 per items, so feel free to charge in that range.

Local same-day and next-day deliveries

In our post on holiday exclusives, we mentioned the possibility of offering special deals for local delivery only, like a locally themed gift basket or something too delicate or bulky to ship. 

This kind of offer works well if you have customers (or potential customers) near your fulfillment center and if you have a way to deliver the goods. So how do you do that, especially if you’re your store’s only employee?

One option is to hire a temporary delivery driver to handle your local orders. You’ll know exactly who’s making deliveries, which is a plus. However, adding someone to your payroll and insurance may only make financial sense if you expect to have a steady stream of local delivery requests through the holidays.

If you’re not sure how many local deliveries you’ll have, or if you don’t have the time to onboard a new employee right now, consider a delivery service. Dropoff and Roadie cater to local businesses and take care of screening, insuring and training their drivers. 

What to charge? Make local delivery on your holiday exclusives free for your customers. Just bake the cost of delivery plus a bit of profit into the price of the items that are available for delivery.

Comprehensive package tracking and insurance

Everybody who buys online wants to know where their stuff is and when it will arrive. Just before the holidays, the need to know gets even more intense. Will their mom’s gift get there in time? Will the package get stolen off the porch? What if it’s damaged?

The result can be lots of calls and emails to your customer service desk, just at a time when you have a million other holiday-related issues to focus on. But you can’t leave your customers wondering.

Fortunately, you have options to help your customers track their stuff and file claims if there’s a problem.

Tracking and claims through the shipping carrier

This is the option many small businesses start with. UPS, USPS, FedEx and others can provide tracking numbers your customers can use to keep tabs on their stuff. Carriers also offer insurance, although filing a claim for a lost or damaged package can be a bit of a hassle. 

Tracking through a shipping extension or app

If you want to give your customers more than basic carrier shipping data, consider an extension or app that goes the extra mile. Here are a few popular options to consider:

• With a site extension like WooCommerce Shipment Tracking your store can give customers an easier way to track their stuff from your site or their emails. 
• With a shipping and returns app like Shippo connected to your store, your customers can see the progress of their packages and their estimated time of arrival – helpful for foiling porch pirates. 
• Another app, Route, does package tracking and takes on shipment-related customer service inquiries and package claims to save you and your customers time.

What to charge: Not a thing. Package tracking is table stakes for eCommerce. Build the cost of any paid tracking services into your product pricing.

Holiday return policies

Customers check return policies before they buy, and they prefer the kind of no-hassle, no-cost return policy that Amazon has had for years. 

What to charge? To customers, the ideal return fee is $0. But returns get expensive for merchants. 

It’s a conundrum the whole eCommerce industry is wrestling with: How can you balance your customers’ reasonable desire to return purchases or gifts that don’t work with your need to avoid losing too much money on return costs? 

Here are some options.

• Offer a free-return policy just for the holiday season and a few weeks beyond, so that your customers’ gift recipients can return items that aren’t quite right. That can keep your customers happy and encourage them to buy from you, without forcing you to bear the full cost of return shipping year-round.
• Another option? Charge for return shipping but waive your normal restocking fee for returns during a special holiday window.
• Include return labels with all your outgoing packages during the holidays to make things easy for your customers. If you use a shipping and reverse-logistics app like Shippo (which works with our eCommerce Website Builder), you’re only charged return postage if the customer uses the label.
• Offer gift receipts that don’t show the purchase price but do include information for returns and exchanges.
• Don’t want to offer returns? Sell items like swimwear or cosmetics that can’t safely be returned? Offer store credit or exchanges instead of returns.

If you make holiday changes to your return policy, make sure to let customers know and clearly spell out the dates when the holiday policy is in effect. Update your site’s return page, mention the updated policy during checkout and put a “holiday return policy” link on each page.

The steps above are great for building loyalty in your customers. But there’s no denying that returns cost you money. Here are a couple of options for reducing the impact on your bottom line. 

• Add an “open box” section in your store where budget-conscious shoppers can buy returned items in good condition at a discount, to help you recover some of your return costs.
• Consider partnering with a liquidator (Overstock and B-Stock are a couple of well-known examples) to sell your returned inventory.

Now that you have ideas for making holiday deliveries special and easy for your customers, we need to think about how to get those orders delivered on time, without busting your budget. 

In the next Rock the Holidays post, we’ll get into the finer points of delivery that all eCommerce merchants need to know. From cutoff dates to holiday surcharges to international shipping policies, we’ll help you get up to speed on shipping for your store’s first holiday season.

source https://www.hostgator.com/blog/ecommerce-holiday-delivery-options/