WooCommerce Tests New Instagram Shopping Checkout Feature, Now in Closed Beta

Instagram’s checkout feature, which allows users to purchase products without leaving the app, has become an even more important part of Facebook’s long-term investment in e-commerce now that the pandemic has so heavily skewed consumer behavior towards online shopping. When Instagram introduced checkout in 2019, it reported that 130 million users were tapping to reveal product tags in shopping posts …

Optimizing Your WordPress Site Performance with Smush, Hummingbird, and The Hub

If you manage multiple WordPress sites, logging into each individual site to tweak performance settings can be tedious and time-consuming. The Hub’s Performance tab lets you quickly optimize and manage site performance with Hummingbird and Smush from a single tab. The Hub is a complete WordPress management console that lets you manage one or more WordPress sites from one central …

Using the Web Stories for WordPress Plugin? You Better Play By Google’s Rules

Web Stories dashboard screen in WordPress. What comes as a surprise to few, Google has updated its content guidelines for its Web Stories format. For users of its recently-released Web Stories for WordPress plugin, they will want to follow the extended rules for their Stories to appear in the “richer experiences” across Google’s services. This includes the grid view on …

Stripe Acquires Paystack for $200M+

The big news in the world of e-commerce today is Stripe’s acquisition of Paystack, a Nigeria-based payments system that is widely used throughout African markets. The company, which became informally known as “the Stripe of Africa” picked up $8 million in Series A funding in 2018, led by Stripe, Y Combinator, and Tencent. Paystack has grown to power more than …

WooCommerce 4.6 Makes New Home Screen the Default for New and Existing Stores

WooCommerce 4.6 was released today. The minor release dropped during WooSesh, a global, virtual conference dedicated to WooCommerce and e-commerce topics. It features the new home screen as the default for all stores. Previously, the screen was only the default on new stores. Existing store owners had to turn the feature on in the settings. The updated home screen, originally …

Google Podcasts Manager Adds More Data from Search: Impressions, Top-Discovered Episodes, and Search Terms

Google announced an expansion of listener engagement metrics today for those using its Podcast Manager. Previously, audience insights included data about the types of devices listeners are using, where listeners tune in and drop off during a given episode, total number of listens, and listening duration, but the service lacked analytics regarding how visitors were discovering the podcast. Google is …

Introducing: New and Improved Hub Tabs!

Since we released The Hub 2.0 in March, we’ve been working hard to improve the experience, and we think you’re gonna love the new look and functionality we’re releasing for you today. In a nutshell, we’ve refreshed the design and functionality of your Security, Performance, SEO, and Overview tabs to give you, and your users, a much more elegant and …