Thinking about buying an off-the-shelf WordPress template or wondering if a bespoke Wordpress theme would be better? In this blog we cover the pros and cons of both. Turnaround time Wordpress templates can be a great option for small businesses just starting out. Those that are tech savvy could have a simple site up and running within a few hours, providing they have the content ready. On the other hand a bespoke theme would take longer to develop, but it would be entirely tailored to your ...

Before you can set up your WordPress store you’ll need to setup your Wordpress website and install an ecommerce plugin. Our plugin of choice is WooCommerce. Once you've done that, here’s a checklist for getting your WordPress store up and running. WordPress store checklist 1) Product descriptions Write product descriptions that are clear and easy to read. They should include everything your prospective customer will need to know to make a decision about buying your product, including: ...

Want to sell more from your WooCommerce shop? Here are four ways to improve your product pages. 1. Write a good product description When you’re selling online, you are relying on your product description to do the selling for you, so a good description of your product is crucial. Make sure it is... Unique Google doesn’t like duplicate content, so it is important for search engine optimisation to write a unique description, especially if you sell the same product as another online shop. ...

We’ve already talked in detail about why we prefer to work with WooCommerce. In this blog post we’ll look at the advantages of WooCommerce for our clients, after all, they’re the ones that will be using WooCommerce on a daily basis. WooCommerce review 1) It’s easy to use WooCommerce is as easy to use as WordPress. WordPress is one of the most intuitive content management systems, and WooCommerce uses the same interface, making managing your products and stock easy and stress free. Ad...

As we mentioned in our best WordPress forms plugins blog, Gravity Forms is our WordPress form plugin of choice. Although we have experimented with other plugins, we now almost exclusively use Gravity Forms for new client sites as we've found it’s by far the best for a whole host of reasons. It’s powerful Gravity Forms are powerful and very well integrated with WordPress. Some clever things you can do include...Allow entire blog posts to be submitted through a form, and saved as a dr...

There are many different ways to add a form to your WordPress website – this post covers some of the most popular options, from basic contact WordPress forms to fully featured customisable plugins. The features, support and pricing models of WordPress forms plugins vary significantly, so it's important to evaluate the options based on your requirements. The best plugin for your business may be entirely different to someone else's. In their simplest form, WordPress forms are ideal for allowi...

Here at Cognique, we are big fans of the WordPress content management system. It is simple and easy to use, yet has the framework available for enhancements allowing the core features to be built upon to create very complex websites. However the world of WordPress ecommerce has always been a bit of a grey area.  We have evaluated many e-commerce plugins over the years, including WP eCommerce, MarketPress and JigoShop. However we have never found a solution we felt was a true competitor to the d...

Since we published this article in November 2015, things have moved on considerably. Read our latest blog on the subject for a more accurate answer: Is 2017 the time to go HTTPS with an SSL certificate? Last year in our blog we wrote about how Google were starting to prioritise secure websites (https) over unsecure websites (http) in search rankings. This was part of Google’s wider campaign for https to be used everywhere, and for all information on the web to be transmitted securely. Since ...

There are a number of WordPress plugins designed to block referrer spam from accessing your website and affecting your analytics data. To find out if your website is affected read our earlier blog post Is referrer spam affecting your website metrics? You can find instructions on how to block referrer spam with WordPress below: The following instructions assume you are familiar with both WordPress and installing plugins. We cannot be held responsible for any detrimental effects and we do not pro...