Welcome to Latte Learning, your weekly dose of website tips and coffee inspiration, brewed fresh every Wednesday!
As promised, some website tips to share this week:
Tip: Create and link a Gravatar account with your email to ensure a consistent avatar across all WordPress sites and associated comments. Benefit: Enhances your brand’s professionalism and helps your profile stand out in the WordPress community.
Tip: Add a search bar to your website. Benefit: Helps users find content quickly and improves site usability.
Tip: Use accessibility tools like WAVE to check and improve your site’s accessibility features. Benefit: Makes your site usable for people with disabilities and complies with accessibility standards.
Before we dive in, let’s chat about coffee. This week, I used my coffee press, and I absolutely loved it. The process is so relaxing, and the resulting brew really brings out all those rich flavors. If you haven’t tried it yet, I highly recommend giving it a go!
Square is literally everywhere; it has become a go-to payment solution for small businesses. Since acquiring Weebly, Square has been offering streamlined solutions. While these “package deals” may seem like the best all-in-one solution, I’ll explain why you should reconsider and explore WordPress and WooCommerce as a better option for your business.
Fact check: While Square and Weebly are integrated, businesses are not required to use Weebly to benefit from Square’s payment services.
Why Choose WordPress over Wix and Weebly?
Better SEO
First off, pairing WordPress with WooCommerce gives you greater control over optimizing your website for search engines, unlike the constraints of website builders. WooCommerce allows you to boost your visibility with tools like Yoast and Rank Math.
Full ownership
Probably the most important reason to switch is to have full ownership and control. With WooCommerce, you own your website and its data completely. You’re not tied to a third-party platform’s subscription model or limitations. This level of control allows you to manage your site’s hosting, security, and data without restrictions imposed by Weebly or Wix.
Cost savings
Wix/Weebly: Monthly fees for Wix and Weebly can add up. Wix just this year had an increase in the annual fee from $400 to $600 (now that a big jump!) While they provide a simple setup, you’re tied to a subscription model that will go up.
Why You Might Want to Blend Square and WooCommerce
While WooCommerce is effective on its own, integrating it with Square—especially if you’re already using Square for inventory—can be a beneficial solution to consider.
1. Smooth Payment Processing
Seamless Transactions: Just like the perfect pour-over, Square makes payment processing smooth and secure. Integrated directly with WooCommerce, it handles everything from credit cards to mobile payments with ease. Transactions sync automatically with your Square account, simplifying your financial management.
Square for WooCommerce Plugin: Integrates your WooCommerce store with Square, handling payments, inventory, and customer data.
2. Inventory Management Made Easy
Real-Time Updates: Square and WooCommerce synchronize your inventory in real-time, ensuring you never oversell and always stay on top of stock. Making it easy to manage online and in-store inventory from one dashboard.
3. Boost Your SEO and Visibility
SEO-Boosting Features: WooCommerce is packed with SEO-friendly features to help your store climb search engine rankings. When paired with Square, you get a high-performing site that attracts more traffic.
DID YOU KNOW?
If you don’t have SKU numbers for your products, Square can automatically generate them for you. It’s a huge time saver!!
Ready to Make the Switch?
If you’re looking for more flexibility and control over your eCommerce site, exploring WordPress and WooCommerce could be the game-changer you need. While Square and Weebly/Wix offer convenience, the advanced features and customization options available with WordPress and WooCommerce can better support your business growth and SEO needs.
As always, if you have any questions or need assistance with making the switch, feel free to reach out. I’m here to help! Until next time, happy website building and enjoy your coffee! ☕
Leaving you with a recipe for you to try:
Homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte
Ingredients:
1 cup milk (any type: whole, 2%, almond, soy, etc.)
2 tablespoons canned pumpkin puree
2 tablespoons sugar (adjust to taste)
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (plus extra for garnish)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup brewed espresso or strong coffee
Whipped cream (optional, for topping)
Pumpkin pie spice (for garnish, optional)
Or try Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte (fall came early this year!)
Starbuck tip: Order 1 pump of the flavor and its just perfect!
