How to Make a Featured Product in WooCommerce: A Complete Guide
Introduction:
In the competitive world of e-commerce, highlighting your best-selling or most important products is crucial for driving sales and capturing customer attention. WooCommerce, the leading WordPress e-commerce plugin, offers a simple yet powerful feature to achieve this: featured products. By marking a product as “featured,” you can easily showcase it on your homepage, category pages, or even dedicated promotional sections of your online store. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on how to make a featured product in WooCommerce, optimizing your online store for increased visibility and conversions.
Main Part:
What are WooCommerce Featured Products?
Featured products are products you specifically designate as important and worthy of special attention. They are essentially “highlighted” products. This allows you to:
- Promote best-selling items: Showcase your most popular products prominently.
- Introduce new arrivals: Draw immediate attention to your latest offerings.
- Highlight promotional items: Promote sales, discounts, or limited-time offers.
- Increase visibility of strategic products: Push products that align with your marketing goals.
Step-by-Step Guide to Marking a Product as Featured in WooCommerce
There are several ways to mark a product as featured in WooCommerce. Here’s the most common and straightforward method:
1. Log in to your WordPress Admin Dashboard: Access your website’s backend.
2. Navigate to Products: In the left-hand menu, click on “Products” -> “All Products.” This will display a list of all the products currently in your store.
3. Locate the Product You Want to Feature: Browse the product list or use the search bar to find the specific product you want to mark as featured.
4. Quick Edit: Hover over the product you want to edit. You’ll see several options, including “Edit,” “Quick Edit,” “Trash,” etc. Click on “Quick Edit.”
5. Mark as Featured: In the Quick Edit panel, you’ll see a checkbox labeled “Featured.” Check this box.
6. Update the Product: Click the “Update” button. The product is now marked as featured.
Displaying Featured Products on Your Website
Simply marking a product as featured doesn’t automatically display it on your website. You need to use WooCommerce’s built-in shortcodes or custom coding to display these products.
#### Using WooCommerce Shortcodes:
WooCommerce provides a variety of shortcodes for displaying products. Here are two useful ones for displaying featured products:
* `[products limit=”number” columns=”number” visibility=”featured”]` : This shortcode allows you to control the number of featured products displayed (`limit`), the number of columns to display them in (`columns`), and specifies that you only want to show featured products (`visibility=”featured”`).
* Example: `[products limit=”4″ columns=”4″ visibility=”featured”]` This code will display the 4 most recent featured products in a grid with 4 columns.
* `[featured_products limit=”number” columns=”number”]`: A simpler version that specifically targets featured products.
* Example: `[featured_products limit=”3″ columns=”3″]` This displays the first 3 featured products in 3 columns.
To use these shortcodes:
1. Create a new page or edit an existing one: Go to Pages -> Add New or edit an existing page where you want to display featured products.
2. Add a shortcode block: In the WordPress editor, click the “+” icon to add a new block. Search for “Shortcode” and select the “Shortcode” block.
3. Paste the shortcode: Paste the desired shortcode into the Shortcode block and customize the `limit` and `columns` attributes as needed.
4. Publish or Update the page. View the page on your website to see the featured products.
#### Using Custom Code (for more advanced users):
For more advanced customization, you can use PHP code to query and display featured products. This requires some knowledge of WordPress and WooCommerce development.
'product', 'posts_per_page' => 4, // Number of products to display 'tax_query' => array( array( 'taxonomy' => 'product_visibility', 'field' => 'term_id', 'terms' => 'featured', // Only show featured products ), ), );
$loop = new WP_Query( $args );
if ( $loop->have_posts() ) {
echo ‘
- ‘;
while ( $loop->have_posts() ) {
$loop->the_post();
wc_get_template_part( ‘content’, ‘product’ );
}
echo ‘
‘;
} else {
echo ‘
No featured products found.
‘;
}
wp_reset_postdata();
?>
Important: This code should be added to your theme’s `functions.php` file or a custom plugin. Be careful when modifying your theme’s files and always back up your website before making any changes. It’s recommended to use a child theme for customizations to avoid losing them during theme updates. This code retrieves and displays a specified number of featured products using a WooCommerce template. You can customize the output further by modifying the ‘content-product.php’ template in your theme (again, best to do this in a child theme).
Customizing the Appearance of Featured Products
The appearance of your featured products is determined by your WooCommerce theme. To further customize the look and feel, you can use CSS. Identify the CSS classes associated with the featured product display (use your browser’s developer tools for this) and then add custom CSS rules to your theme’s stylesheet or a custom CSS plugin. For example, you might want to add a border, change the background color, or increase the font size of the product titles.
Tips for Optimizing Featured Products
- Choose products strategically: Don’t just feature random products. Select those that are most likely to convert or those you specifically want to promote.
- Use high-quality images: Visually appealing images are crucial for capturing attention.
- Write compelling product descriptions: Highlight the key benefits of the featured products.
- Regularly update your featured products: Keep your featured products fresh and relevant by rotating them regularly.
- Analyze performance: Track the performance of your featured products to see which ones are most effective. Use analytics tools like Google Analytics to monitor traffic, conversions, and sales.
Conclusion:
Marking and displaying featured products in WooCommerce is a simple yet effective way to boost sales and highlight important items in your online store. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can easily showcase your best-selling, newest, or promotional products and drive more traffic and conversions to your website. Remember to strategically choose your featured products, optimize their presentation, and track their performance to maximize their impact on your business. Take advantage of WooCommerce’s built-in features and explore custom coding options to create a truly engaging and effective featured product display.
