Developed by the team behind WordPress itself, [WooCommerce](https://wordpress.org/plugins/woocommerce/) is the most complete e-commerce plugin for WordPress.

This is a step-by-step guide on how you can start an online store today using WordPress. The great thing about it is that you don't have to be a coding ninja or design aficionado to do it. All you need is a computer and an internet connection.

## 1. How To Register A Domain Name On Cloudflare?

A domain name is a human-readable address for your site. We don't need to go into the details of how the domain works in this tutorial. But it's one of the most important things for a website. In this tutorial, we will register a domain and connect it to a [hosting service](https://www.namecheap.com/hosting/what-is-web-hosting-definition/). 

There are many great services where you can register a domain, here are a few we like:-

-   [Google](https://domains.google.com/registrar)
-   [Cloudflare](https://www.cloudflare.com/products/registrar/)
-   [Namecheap](https://www.namecheap.com/domains/)

But for this tutorial, we will use Cloudflare. 

### Log Into Cloudflare

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663247647/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-15_18-42-12.png)

Go to [Cloudflare](https://www.cloudflare.com/) and click on the link that says **Login**.

### Find The Domain

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663247758/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-15_18-35-39.png)

Once logged In. **Search** for the domain. Check if it's available and hit the **Purchase** button.

Keep this open in the tab because we will come back to it later.

## 2. How To Set up EasyWP Hosting?

There are many great hosting providers out there who provide services for all kinds of websites, but for the sake of simplicity, we are going to use [Managed WordPress hosting by EasyWP](https://www.easywp.com/).

### Log Into EasyWP

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663249486/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-15_18-49-17.png)

Once logged in, simply click on **New Website** and go through the setup wizard.

Once done. EasyWP will set up a site for you. 

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663251598/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-15_19-25-43.png)

Once done. You should see a clickable link above the title. Click on that to make sure that the site is working.

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663251693/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-15_19-27-00.png)

Before we go any further, we will need to connect the domain name that we purchased from Cloudflare to our hosting provider, which is EasyWP.

## 3. How To Connect Cloudflare Domain Name With EasyWP Hosting?

From the EasyWP dashboard, click on **Manage**.

Scroll down, and you should see a default domain that EasyWP provided. Click on a link right next to it that says **Change**.

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663251888/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-15_19-28-26.png)

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663252362/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-15_20-02-14.png)


### Go Back To Cloudflare

Click on the link in the sidebar called **Websites**. Then click on the domain name that you want to connect to EasyWP. 

Once done, click on a link that says **DNS Settings**.

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663252139/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-15_18-37-26.png)

Now, you should see a button that says **Add Record**. All you have to do is add a new record with the following configuration.

- Type: **CNAME**
- Name: **example.com** (this should be your domain name)
- Content: **ingress-bonde.easywp.com** (or anything else provided by EasyWP)
- Proxy Status: **DNS Only** (once verified, change it back to **Proxied** to avoid SSL certificate error)

Now go to the site using the domain name that you just connected and make sure that the site is displaying something. It's okay if it looks broken, it should get fixed in some time.

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663252819/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-15_20-08-15.png)

## 4. How To Configure Cloudflare SSL Certificate with EasyWP?

From the Cloudflare dashboard, go to your website and click on **SSL/TLS > Origin Server**. There should be a button that says **Create Certificate**. Click on that.

Once the certificate is created, copy both the **Private Key** and **Origin Certificate**.

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663255844/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-15_20-15-51.png)

Once copied, we need to go back to the EasyWP dashboard and click on the link called **Manage** in the SSL Certificate row.

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663339669/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-16_20-16-33.png)

From there, we can simply change our SSL certificate and paste the **SSL Certificate** and **Private Key** that we copied earlier.

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663339762/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-16_20-18-48.png)

## 5. How to Set up WooCommerce?

If you check your site right now, it looks pretty basic. But worry not, we will install the theme and plugins that should add the most modern e-commerce functionalities to your site.

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663340041/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-16_20-23-38.png)

We need to go back to the EasyWP dashboard and click on the button that says **WP Admin**. This is where the fun part begins. Once you click on that, it should take you to WordPress's dashboard.

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663251693/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-15_19-27-00.png)

### Install The Theme

From the WordPress dashboard, go to **Appearance > Themes**.

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663340526/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-16_20-30-25.png)

Click on the button that says **Add New** in the upper-left corner.

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663342036/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-16_20-31-33.png)

There are thousands of themes to choose from. But today we are going to use [Selleradise](https://wordpress.org/themes/selleradise-lite/). This theme provides the perfect balance of performance and feature set. 

Simply search for the theme and click on install.

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663342450/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-16_21-03-28.png)

Once installed, click on **Activate**.

When activated, it will ask you to install plugins that it needs to provide a complete experience. We will do what it says. Click on **Begin installing plugins**.

![enter image description here](https://res.cloudinary.com/khizarhasan/image/upload/v1663342574/redoxbird/woocommer-guid/Screenshot_from_2022-09-16_21-05-45.png)

It should install the following plugins:-

1. **Elementor** (this would be our page builder)
2. **Kirki** (this would be used to provide customization options like colors, fonts, etc…)
3. **Selleradise Widget** (this is provided by the Selleradise team. It contains custom-built Elementor widgets that we can use to build our pages)

We are done here. All you need to do is either add your products or import demo content provided by the theme. To learn more, follow the [guide provided by Selleradise.](https://docs.selleradise.com/getting-started/import-demo-content)

WordPress is perhaps the most ubiquitous content management system on the internet. Even though It started as a simple blogging platform, over time it has evolved into somewhat of an all-purpose content management system. Thanks to its large community, it is still going strong.

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How To Start A WooCommerce Store (Step By Step Guide)

This then gave birth to a breed of CMS that we call Headless CMS.

## What is a headless CMS?

Headless CMS is a **C**ontent **M**anagement **S**ystem that decouples the UI (or in other words **Head**) of an app or a website from the server/database layer. Meaning that you can build your UI with whatever technology you want, whether it's React, Flutter, or anything else, and consume the content using APIs.

## Headless CMS vs Traditional CMS

In a traditional CMS like WordPress, when you want to render some content, you query it from the database and then simply print that data using PHP (which renders on the server). But in a headless CMS, content is delivered as REST or GraphQL API. It is then up to the developer how they want to render that content. They can use a variety of tools and technologies to do that, and that's where the appeal of a Headless CMS comes from. Some like to use a frameworks like NextJS, Vue or Angular, while others use static site generators like Gatsby.

Some systems like Strapi and Directus even allow you to model your content without even touching a single line of code. It means that you probably won't even need to hire a backend developer to build your app or a website, a frontend developer should suffice.

| Feature | Traditional CMS | Headless CMS |
| ------------- |:-------------:| -----:|
| **Scalability** | Low | High |
| **Flexibility** | Medium | High |
| **Load Time** | Okay | Good |
| **Server Cost** | High | Medium to Low |
| **Development Cost** | Low | High |
| **Hosting** | Self Hosted | Self Hosted or as a Service |
| **Used For** | Websites | Variety of applications |

> Note: Many traditional CMS like WordPress can be used as Headless CMS.

## Is Headless CMS good for you?

It depends on a variety of factors. You need to ask yourself what's important for you and your use case, cost or performance, developer flexibility or administrator flexibility, stability or modernity and make a decision based on that.

Headless content management systems are a growing trend these days. And the reason for their success is pretty simple, people do not want to build UIs with technologies like PHP and jQuery, as you do in traditional monolith systems like WordPress. But instead, people want to take advantage of much better and more flexible technologies that are available today like React, Vue, and Svelte that are best suited to create much more scalable UIs.

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Best Headless Content Management Systems in 2022



## Best search plugins for WooCommerce

### 1.  <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/ajax-search-for-woocommerce/" target="_blank">FiboSearch</a>

![fibosearch.png](http://localhost:1337/uploads/fibosearch_7d2d7431a0.png)

FiboSearch provides a well-designed advanced AJAX search bar with live search suggestions. Baymard Institute’s latest UX research reveals that search autocomplete, auto-suggest, or an instant search feature is now offered on 96% of major e-commerce sites. It’s a must-have feature for every e-commerce store.

### 2.  <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/smart-woocommerce-search/" target="_blank">Smart WooCommerce Search</a>

![smart-woocommerce-search.jpg](http://localhost:1337/uploads/smart_woocommerce_search_6e2aebe661.jpg)

Smart WooCommerce Search is pretty similar to FiboSearch, and it integrates seamlessly into the WooCommerce Product Search widget. You can display it on any of the pages of the site using a short code `[smart_search id = “1″]`.

## Best cart plugins for WooCommerce

### 1.  <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/woo-save-abandoned-carts/" target="_blank">CartBounty</a>

![cart-bounty.gif](http://localhost:1337/uploads/cart_bounty_db61403d33.gif)

CartBounty allows your customers to Save and recover abandoned carts for WooCommerce. You will receive regular email notifications about newly abandoned shopping carts and will be able to remind about these carts either manually or using WordPress default mail server to send automated abandoned cart recovery emails.

### 2. <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/side-cart-woocommerce/" target="_blank">Side Cart WooCommerce</a>

![side-cart.jpg](http://localhost:1337/uploads/side_cart_429922ee3c.jpg)

Side Cart is a mini-cart plugin that users can access cart items from anywhere on your site without having to visit the cart page. Since it AJAX based, users can edit the cart without triggering a page refresh.

## Best wishlist plugins for WooCommerce

### 1. <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/ti-woocommerce-wishlist/" target="_blank">TI WooCommerce Wishlist</a>

![TI WooCommerce Wishlist Cover Image](http://localhost:1337/uploads/ti_wishlist_7a91eea68d.png)

Wishlist is probably one of the most requested featured of WooCommerce. Many plugins have tried to tackle this problem with varying degrees of success, but we believe "TI WooCommerce Wishlist" is the best of all.


### 2. <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/woo-smart-wishlist/" target="_blank">WPC Smart Wishlist</a>

![WPC Smart Wishlist Cover Image](http://localhost:1337/uploads/wpc_smart_wishlist_5a3409a7be.png?updated_at=2022-02-01T09:50:17.290Z)

WPC Smart Wishlist is a great alternative to TI WooCommerce Wishlist. It is powerful yet intuitive. It comes with all the featured that you need in a wishlist plugin for WooCommerce.

## Best caching plugins for WooCommerce

### 1. <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-fastest-cache/" target="_blank">WP Fastest Cache</a>

![WP Fastest Cache Cover Image](http://localhost:1337/uploads/wp_fastest_cache_5dd1691286.jpg?updated_at=2022-02-01T10:06:56.958Z)

WP Fastest Cache is a great plugin for caching any WordPress site, not just WooCommerce store. We have personal experience with it in eCommerce store and never had an issue.

### 2. <a href="https://wp-rocket.me/ecommerce/" target="_blank">WP Rocket Cache</a>

![WP Rocket Cache Cover Image](http://localhost:1337/uploads/wp_rocket_cache_9fdc212bd8.png?updated_at=2022-02-01T10:49:41.810Z)

WP Rocket Cache is the first choice of many eCommerce stores, and that's for a good reason. It is once hell of plugin. But do note that there is no Free option for this plugin. You are going to be paying at least **$49** from the get go.

## Best filtering plugins for WooCommerce

### 1. <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/woocommerce-products-filter/" target="_blank"> WOOF</a>

![WOOF Cover Image](http://localhost:1337/uploads/woof_a991873064.png?updated_at=2022-02-01T11:01:11.497Z)

(WOOF) is a product search plugin for WooCommerce that allows your site customers filter products by categories, attributes, products tags, products custom taxonomies and price. There is also WOOF extension API and which can help developers develop a custom solution.

### 2. <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/filter-everything/" target="_blank"> Filter Everything</a>

![Filter everything Cover Image](http://localhost:1337/uploads/filter_everything_aee30cb00c.jpg?updated_at=2022-02-01T11:03:43.323Z)

Filter everything is a great alternative to WOOF that allows you to build a Powerful, Faceted filtering system by any criteria. It filters any post types including Custom Post Types and Products, well-designed and has useful filtering options.

## Best checkout plugins for WooCommerce

### 1. <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/woo-checkout-field-editor-pro/" target="_blank"> Checkout Field Editor</a>

![Checkout Filed Editor Cover Image](http://localhost:1337/uploads/checkout_field_editor_67b826c92c.png?updated_at=2022-02-01T11:15:40.825Z)

Checkout Filed Editor does exactly what it says. It enables you to edit the default checkout fields of your WooCommerce platform, add new custom fields in the three sections (namely Billing, Shipping and Additional), edit, hide, or delete the default fields, change labels, rearrange checkout fields, validate the checkout fields, add custom CSS classes etc.

### 2. <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-multi-step-checkout/" target="_blank"> Multi-Step Checkout</a>

![Multi-Step Checkout Cover Image](http://localhost:1337/uploads/multi_step_checkout_6d0bb3ad14.png?updated_at=2022-02-01T15:00:11.306Z)

Multi-Step Checkout aims to create a better user experience by splitting the checkout process in several steps. Which should improve conversion rate. Since it makes use of the standard WooCommerce templates, it should work with most of the themes out of the box.

### 3. <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/fluid-checkout/" target="_blank"> Fluid Checkout</a>

![Fluid Checkout Cover Image](http://localhost:1337/uploads/fluid_checkout_7a32adabd8.png?updated_at=2022-02-01T15:01:05.863Z)

Fluid Checkout is similar to Multi-Step Checkout in its goal of creating a simplified checkout experience, but it does things a little differently. It has better accessibility at the checkout page, with support for keyboard-only navigation and screen readers.

When it comes to popularity, WooCommerce is an undisputed king among eCommerce platforms. Powering nearly 23% of all eCommerce websites, it is a behemoth by all accounts. Hence, it is not surprising that there are thousands of developers all over the world who are building plugins and extensions specifically for this platform. Thousands of high-quality plugins are available on the WordPress directory and elsewhere from them, we have collected a few that we think can absolutely help you increase the sales of your online store.

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13 Best WooCommerce plugins to help you increase sales

You know the frustration when you have a portfolio or a simple hobby project or even a commercial project with very low traffic but you have to pay at least $5 a month to a hosting company to host it. I mean $5 is not much but still why pay when you don’t have to. 

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Best Free hosting solutions in 2022

E-Commerce is one of the fastest-growing industries in 2022. So, it is hardly surprising that there are hundreds of companies trying to capitalize on this very lucrative market. Companies like Shopify have done really well and now have a staggering 180 Billion Dollars market cap. But today we want to let you know about some great open-source alternatives to platforms like Shopify.

Blog

How To Start A WooCommerce Store (Step By Step Guide)

5 Best Headless Content Management Systems in 2022

13 Best WooCommerce plugins to help you increase sales

4 Best Free hosting solutions in 2022

3 Best Open Source E-Commerce Platforms in 2022