A WordPress ecommerce theme can be easily added to your default WP installation to transform your regular blog into a well oiled online ecommerce store. E-commerce themes for WordPress come in all shapes and sizes. Whether you need to sell physical products or digital products from your WP storefront, there’s a theme that can do that. There are several free WP store themes available if you’re just getting started and need to save a few dollars. The downside of using a free WordPress theme is that they’re not well supported or updated and you may not want to take the risk of something breaking and then losing customers. A great alternative is a premium WordPress ecommerce theme that includes quality support and frequent updates.

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There’s no denying that daily deal sites like Groupon are incredibly effective at getting new customers to visit local storefronts. Despite their powerful ability to generates sales for merchants, the costs that business owners incur by advertising with group buying sites can be overwhelming. Many business owners have reported that daily deal websites have actually done more harm than good for their company. Common problems that businesses experience when offering group buying deals include things like a drop in online ratings (i.e. Yelp), overselling coupons, overbooking appointments, and a lack of staff members to handle the flood of new customers.

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WordPress comment plugins allow you to completely customize the design and functionality of the default WP comment section of your blog. While commenting systems like IntenseDebate, Echo, and Disqus offer lots of nice features, a common complaint is that they slow WP page loads and most comment plugins aren’t compatible with them. To help you trick-out your commenting section, we’ve put together a quick review list below of some of the best WordPress commenting plugins currently available. We will continue to update this list as other terrific comment plugins for WordPress are discovered. For other great WP plugins that can improve your WordPress blog, take a look at our directory of premium WordPress plugins.

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Daily deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial offer huge discounts on products and services through partnerships with local merchants. These deal of the day websites can produce wonders for local small businesses that need foot traffic. Traditional online advertising isn’t nearly as effective as social buying platforms for getting people to visit local storefronts. For approximately the same price as a decent-sized online advertising campaign, a collective buying site will feature your business’s deal offering on their website and notify local email subscribers. With many of these online services boasting readership in the millions, they can literally flood your store with hundreds to thousands of new customers within a single day or two.

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WordPress slideshow plugins can be very powerful tools for both publishers and designers. If used correctly, a slideshow plugin for WordPress can effectively highlight featured posts and images within your WP blog to capture the reader’s attention. The WP plugin repository is overflowing with slide show plugins but many of them either aren’t well supported or they are poorly developed. We’ve sifted through an incredible amount of those to select our favorites. Below you’ll find a list of free and premium WordPress slide show plugins that are both well supported and frequently updated. We plan to keep adding to this list as new ones are launched. After reviewing those below you should stop by to see our premium WordPress plugins directory which contains other kickass WP plugins that can help you juice-up your blog.

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Groupon, the pioneer of daily deal sites, offered its first nationwide deal yesterday and according to the Chicago Tribune, they sold 445,000 deals for its client, Gap. The $25 voucher worth up to $50 in Gap apparel became available at about 6:30 AM PST and ended at around midnight. The Gap deal offering was so popular it even crashed Groupon’s servers for a short while. Groupon normally takes 50% of all deal sales which means that they earned an estimated $5,562,500. Clearly it was a very successful day for Groupon. Unfortunately the jury is still out as to whether or not Gap came away from this deal as a winner. By our calculations they stand to lose at least $8 million unless they can convince their new customers to keep coming back.

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Daily deal sites like Groupon can be a small business owner’s greatest tools for generating sales. However, daily deal websites can also cause more harm than good if the business owner doesn’t do his/her homework upfront. Most daily deal business models take about 50% of all coupon sales leaving the business owner with only 25% of the original price amount for the product or service. That’s because most deals sold there offer 50% off the original price. As you can see, it can be quite costly for any entrepreneur to utilize a deal distribution service.

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A WordPress directory plugin or a WordPress directory theme can help you either integrate a simple link directory for WordPress or create a stand alone business directory website, respectively. Whether you’d like to establish a professional directory service using a premium WordPress directory theme, or you just want to add a directory plugin for WordPress to merely feature your favorite links, there are several WP plugins and themes that can help. The free directory plugins for WordPress offer many features but many are plagued with infrequently updates and a lack of support. In contrast, both commercial WP directory themes and premium WordPress directory plugins are usually well supported and they offer frequent updates. Below we’ve compiled a review list of some of the best WordPress directory plugins and the top WordPress directory themes that are now available for free or paid use. If you’re in need of other great tools for your WP website, see our comprehensive list of premium WordPress plugins.

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Groupon’s command of the daily deal sites market is impressive to say the least. Since launching in November of 2008, it has expanded to serve 22 countries and hundreds of cities with a total of 11 million subscribers worldwide. Despite its commanding lead on other group buying competitors, the percentage of traffic from organic search is very little. According to Compete, nearly all of Groupon’s traffic comes from email and social marketing (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) referrals. Clearly Groupon’s brand is a very powerful and trusted source for attracting local merchants and deal crazed consumers. If Groupon’s brand or its product (i.e. deal vouchers) was diluted in any way, the effects could therefore be devastating.

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