WooCommerce & Plugin Installs

About WooCommerce

WooCommerce helps small businesses launch, manage, and sell products online through a clean, standard WordPress plugin. It gives you the product pages you need to sell your products and handles taxes, shipping, shopping carts, checkout, and payments. WooCommerce is a popular e-commerce website management tool trusted and used by businesses worldwide. Automattic, WooCommerce’s official creator and maintainer, actively updates and supports it.

When you learn WooCommerce with WordPress, you can transfer your knowledge and experience to other popular WordPress e-commerce themes like Astra, Hestia, and Flatsome, as well as other web-based retail platforms like Shopify, Squarespace, and Wix.

Install WooCommerce

1. Install & Activate the WooCommerce Plugin:

  1. Log in to your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
  2. In the left sidebar, go to Plugins > Add New Plugin
  3. Type WooCommerce into the top-right search box.
  4. Locate the official WooCommerce plugin (by Automattic) and click Install Now.
  5. Once installed, click Activate.
  6. (Optional – I skipped this part) Follow the on-screen setup wizard to configure your basic store details.

Install UpdraftPlus

I use the free version of UpdraftPlus to back up my WordPress website to my own Dropbox.com account. This brings me peace of mind knowing my site is backed up and I can restore a previous version if something happens to my website.

1. Install & Activate the UpdraftPlus Plugin:

  1. Log in to your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
  2. In the left sidebar, go to Plugins > Add New Plugin
  3. Type UpdraftPlus into the top-right search box.
  4. Locate the official UpdraftPlus plugin (by David Anderson / Team UpdraftPlus) and click Install Now.
  5. Once installed, click Activate.
  6. In the left sidebar, click UpdraftPlus and follow the on-screen setup wizard to configure your basic settings. Here is what I chose for my settings:
    1. Backup schedule: Daily
    2. Number of backups to keep: 2
    3. Backup destination: (choose your preferred online storage site) I chose my Dropbox.com account.
    4. Connect your storage account by signing in.
    5. You choose to accept or deny the options on the next few setup screens.

Verification: Check your sidebar navigation; you should now see UpdraftPlus listed as a main menu item. Check back in a week and make sure your website is being backed up to your online storage site.

Install Wordfence

Wordfence acts like a digital security guard and antivirus program for your WordPress website. It runs a continuous firewall that automatically blocks hackers and malicious traffic before they can reach your site. It also scans your website’s files in the background to find and remove hidden malware and security vulnerabilities, keeping your web projects safe from cyberattacks.

1. Install & Activate the Wordfence Plugin:

  1. Log in to your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
  2. In the left sidebar, go to Plugins > Add New Plugin
  3. Type Wordfence into the top-right search box.
  4. Locate the official Wordfence plugin (by Mark Maunder) and click Install Now.
  5. Once installed, click Activate.
  6. Follow the on-screen setup wizard to set up your Wordfence license key for the free version. The free version won’t work without it.

Your store isn’t fully set up yet; be patient. But this is a great start!

Install Yoast SEO

1. Install & Activate the Yoast SEO Plugin:

  1. Log in to your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
  2. In the left sidebar, go to Plugins > Add New Plugin
  3. Type Yoast SEO into the top-right search box.
  4. Locate the official Yoast SEO plugin (by Yoast) and click Install Now.
  5. Once installed, click Activate.
  6. Follow the on-screen setup wizard to set up your free version of Yoast SEO.

Your store isn’t fully set up yet; be patient. But this is a great start!