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Out-of-stock products don’t just mean missed sales. They also mean missed opportunities to keep customers coming back to your WooCommerce store. The good news is that there’s an easy way to recover those lost sales. Adding a “Notify When Back in Stock” feature to your WooCommerce store lets customers sign up to be alerted the moment a product is available again, which brings them straight back to your store and ready to buy. Beyond recovering lost sales, back-in-stock notifications help build customer loyalty by showing shoppers you value their interest even when you can’t fulfill their order right away. Since WooCommerce doesn’t include this feature natively, you’ll need a third-party plugin to make it work. In this guide, I’ll show you two easy ways for how to send back-in-stock notifications in WooCommerce – no coding needed. 🔖 TL;DR: Sending WooCommerce Back-in-Stock Notifications There are 2 easy ways to send back-in-stock notifications in WooCommerce: Using Merchant Pro – The ultimate all-in-one WooCommerce toolkit. Instead of installing a single-use plugin, you get back-in-stock notifications plus 40+ other sales-boosting features to grow your store. Using Back in Stock Notifier for WooCommerce – The best free option available. It has a slightly steeper learning curve, but it’s a feature-rich solution if you are on a tight budget and only need waitlist functionality. Why Send Back-in-Stock Notifications in WooCommerce? Sending back-in-stock notifications in WooCommerce is one of the simplest ways to recover lost sales and keep customers coming back. Instead of losing a shopper the moment a product runs out, you give them a reason to stay connected with your online store. I’ve found that stores using this feature are far more likely to convert interested shoppers into paying customers because the notification arrives exactly when the customer is most motivated to buy. Here are some of the key benefits of adding back-in-stock notifications to your WooCommerce store: 🩹 Recover sales that would otherwise be lost — when a customer signs up to be notified, they’re telling you they already want to buy. A timely email brings them back before they shop elsewhere. 💙 Boost customer engagement and loyalty — showing shoppers that you’re keeping track of their interest, even when stock runs low, builds trust, and makes them feel valued. This also ties into creating a strong loyalty program. 📈 Drive repeat traffic on demand — when you restock an item, an automatic email brings ready-to-buy shoppers back to your store, which means more targeted traffic without extra ad spend. Plus, customers who sign up for waitlists are already interested buyers. That makes them far easier to convert into loyal customers compared to cold traffic finding your store for the first time. Here’s a quick overview of the topics I will cover in this guide: Before You Start: Set Up an SMTP Plugin Method 1: Sending Back-in-Stock Notifications Using Merchant Pro (Best for All-in-One WooCommerce Toolkit) Step 1: Install and Activate Merchant Pro Step 3: Open the Waitlist Module Step 4: Configure the Waitlist Module Form Settings Email Settings Shortcode Settings Step 5: Enable the Waitlist Module Alternative: Send Stock Update Emails Manually Method 2: Using the Back in Stock Notifier for WooCommerce Plugin (Free Method) Step 1: Install and Activate the Plugin Step 2: Access the Plugin Settings Step 3: Configure Back in Stock Notifier Plugin Settings Front End Form Visibility Settings Message Settings Mail Background Process Settings Bot Protection Auto-Delete Settings Quantity Field Settings Checkbox Subscribe Form Estimate Stock Arrival Troubleshoot Settings (Experimental) Step 4: Visit Your Out-Of-Stock Product Pages Bonus: Optimize Your WooCommerce Store to Increase Sales FAQs About Sending Back-in-Stock Notifications in WooCommerce Next Steps to Improve Your WooCommerce Store Performance Before You Start: Set Up an SMTP Plugin WordPress uses the PHP mail function by default, which aggressive spam filters often block because it lacks proper sender authentication. Installing an SMTP plugin routes your emails through a trusted provider, adding the necessary verification to ensure your back-in-stock emails reach the inbox. And if you have WP Mail SMTP Pro, you’ll have access to email logs, so you can see exactly which notifications were sent and when. WP Mail SMTP is one of the best WordPress SMTP plugins to improve email deliverability. At WPBeginner, we use it across our business sites, and it’s been a great tool to work with. For details on how to set it up, see our guide on how to use SMTP server to send WordPress emails. Method 1: Sending Back-in-Stock Notifications Using Merchant Pro (Best for All-in-One WooCommerce Toolkit) 🎖️ Best for: Store owners who want to consolidate their plugin stack. Instead of bloating your site with dozens of single-purpose plugins, Merchant gives you back-in-stock notifications alongside 40+ other conversion tools in one lightweight package. Merchant Pro is the ultimate all-in-one WooCommerce growth toolkit. Not only does it offer a streamlined, visual way to set up your waitlists, but it also equips you with trust badges, countdown timers, frequently bought together blocks, and much more. Step 1: Install and Activate Merchant Pro To get started, you’ll need to install and activate the Merchant Pro plugin on your WordPress site. It’s the best all-in-one WooCommerce growth toolkit, and it includes the Waitlist module for setting up back-in-stock notifications for your products. First, let’s create a Merchant account. On the aThemes website, go to the Merchant page and click the ‘Get Merchant Pro’ button. 💡 Note: To use Waitlist, you’ll need Merchant Pro. It also comes with more than 40 sales-boosting modules like trust badges, countdown timers, and frequently bought together blocks. You can also try out the free version of Merchant, but it won’t let you send the back-in-stock notifications. Upon signup, you need to download your Merchant Pro zip file and copy your license key. With that done, it’s time to install and activate the plugin. In your WordPress admin dashboard, go to Plugins » Add Plugin. On the next screen, click ‘Upload Plugin’ and then ‘Choose File.’ Go ahead and upload your Merchant Pro zip file from your

In this episode, Derek Hanson chats with Kimberly Pace Becker about AI’s intersection with language and technology, emphasizing ethics, diverse perspectives, and responsible integration in digital tools.

Transcript [00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley. Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, exploring AI’s impact in WordPress agencies. If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players. If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox and use the form there. So on the podcast today we have Matt Schwartz. Matt runs Inspry, an Atlanta WordPress and Woo Commerce agency. He started it back in 2011 and has been working with WordPress even longer than that. In addition to his agency work, he also has a product called CheckView focused on WordPress testing. He’s got years of experience in the WordPress agency world, and recently he’s turned much of his attention towards the growing impact of AI. If you’ve been hearing a lot about AI but a feeling fatigued by all the fragmented conversations, this episode might well offer a different perspective. Rather than focusing on how AI creates websites or content, Matt shares a different angle, how AI can be used inside a WordPress agency to enhance processes, improve workflows, and deliver more value to clients, with much of it happening behind the scenes. We start by talking about how Matt stumbled into web design and how that led him to running his own agency. We dig into agency life, and why so many freelancers and agency owners are constantly iterating on their processes. From there, we talk about the big shift that’s happening, not just in building sites, but in how agencies can use AI to streamline their SOPs, client communication, and internal operations. Matt explains the need for intention when adding AI to an agency. He introduces the idea of an AI vision document, that helps set guardrails and guidelines for where, and how, AI should factor into your business. He also shares real examples of ways AI can save time and stress in things like meetings, proposals, debugging, support, and even helping you expand your service offerings. We also touch on the risks, ethical considerations, and the importance of keeping a human in the loop during critical agency moments. If you’re running a WordPress agency, or are curious about how agencies are adapting to the rapid pace of change, brought by AI, this episode is for you. This is part one in a two-part series, so listen to this and tune in next week for part two. If you’re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you’ll find all the other episodes as well. And so without further delay, I bring you Matt Schwartz. I am joined on the podcast by Matt Schwartz. Hello, Matt. [00:03:45] Matt Schwartz: Hey Nathan. Thank you so much for having me today. I’m excited. [00:03:48] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, you’re very welcome. We’re on the podcast today to have a chat about AI. Now, before you hit the stop button, dear listener, because AI is all the rage everywhere, we’ve talked about it a million different ways. I think there’s something a little bit different about the conversation that we’re going to have today, because it particularly plays into the WordPress agency, kind of the stuff that you are not doing with the website directly, but all of the bits and pieces that allow you to have an agency, and how AI may or may not be best placed to insert itself in those different scenarios. But before we begin that, Matt, do you mind just giving us your little bio? Maybe tell us a bit about your situation regarding WordPress agencies and whatnot. [00:04:31] Matt Schwartz: Definitely. Yeah, so I run an agency called In Inspry in Atlanta. We’ve been around since 2011. We’ve been using WordPress since 2013, and also have a product called CheckView, which does WordPress testing. But yeah, in the agency space specifically, you know, I’ve been talking to a lot of different agencies about AI. I’ve been pretty involved in it. And you’re totally right, Nathan, our goal today is not to make everyone just have to experience the verbal throw up of the word AI, AI, AI over and over again, which is, I feel like I’m sick of the word. But really going into how agencies can use it in, I think, really interesting ways, and also being candid about what AI is, and some of the pitfalls I think of it that, you know, aren’t always talked about, especially if you go on LinkedIn. [00:05:15] Nathan Wrigley: Okay, so we’ll get into that in a moment, but just before we do, there’s a couple of interesting bits that I want to throw at you. And this is something that I heard in the British press not that long ago. And it doesn’t in any way, shape or form reflect on WordPress, it was just more generally about AI, and the fatigue that the general population are experiencing around that term. And it feels like we have reached maximum capacity to just hear those words, and hear the overpromising and the potentially under delivery of AI. So I’ll throw that little bit in, but also, just to say that what we’re going to talk about today is not going to be how to get the pixels on the page, and how to use AI to turn the website out. This is much more going to be the background to the agency that you run and all of that kind of thing. So before we

Many WordPress site owners keep publishing content for months but still aren’t sure if their SEO is actually working. The tricky part is that the results are usually already there but they’re just not always easy to notice at first glance. Instead of appearing in one obvious place, SEO performance shows up across different areas of your site. You can spot it through clear signals like organic traffic, keyword rankings, indexed pages, click-through rates, and conversions. In this guide, I’ll show you how to check if your SEO is working and measure your SEO progress on your site using tools like MonsterInsights, AIOSEO, and Google Search Console. 💡 Quick 2-Minute Check to See If Your WordPress SEO Is Working If you just want a quick check-up of your SEO performance, you don’t need tools or deep reports yet. Start by answering these simple questions: Are you getting any organic traffic from search engines like Google Search? Are your pages indexed and appearing in search results? Are your keywords showing up in search results at all? If you can answer ‘yes’ to at least one of these, then your SEO is already working in some way. If not, it simply means you still need to focus on the basics, and the rest of this guide will help you fix that step by step. What Does ‘SEO Working’ Actually Mean? When people ask whether their SEO is working, they’re usually expecting a single clear answer. But in reality, SEO success shows up in a few different areas at the same time. I’ve found it’s less about one big result and more about steady progress across your content and visibility. Here are the main signs that your SEO is actually working: Your Organic Traffic is Slowly Increasing: You start getting more visitors from search engines over time. It may not jump overnight, but the trend moves upward. Your Pages are Appearing in Google Search Results: This means your content is getting indexed properly and showing up when people search for related topics. Your Keyword Rankings are Improving: Your posts begin to move higher in search results for the terms you’re targeting. Even moving from page 3 to page 2 is a positive signal. More People are Clicking Your Search Listings: This is your click-through rate (CTR). It tells you that your titles and meta descriptions are compelling enough to attract clicks. Visitors are Taking Action on Your Site: This could be signing up for your email list, filling out a contact form, or making a purchase. The main thing to remember is this: you don’t need to see all of these factors improving at the same time or in big numbers. If even a few of them are moving in the right direction, then your SEO is working and building momentum over time. 5 Easy Ways to Check If Your SEO Is Working Now that you know what ‘SEO working’ actually looks like, let’s get into the practical part: how to check it on your own website. The good news is that you don’t need to guess or rely on assumptions. You can actually see clear SEO signals using a few simple tools and reports. I have broken this down into 5 easy checks that give a pretty accurate picture of what’s happening behind the scenes. These are beginner-friendly, and you can do them even if you’re not very technical: Track Organic Traffic Growth Over Time See Your Organic Traffic With MonsterInsights How to Check Organic Traffic in Google Analytics Verify Your Pages Are Indexed in Google How to Check Indexing in Google Search Console Monitor Your Target Keyword Rankings Analyze Your Organic Click-Through Rate (CTR) How to Check CTR in Google Search Console What Does CTR Tell You? Measure SEO-Driven Conversions and Goals (Conversions) How to Track Conversions in Google Analytics 💡Simple Monthly SEO Checklist How Long Does SEO Take to Work? Frequently Asked Questions About Website SEO 1. Track Organic Traffic Growth Over Time Organic traffic is simply the visitors who land on your website from search engines like Google Search without you paying for ads. So if someone searches for a topic, clicks your post, and visits your site, that’s organic traffic. This is usually the first and most important SEO signal because it tells you one simple thing:Are people actually finding your site through search? To make this easier, here’s an idea of what healthy organic traffic can look like for different types of websites: If this number is going up over time, then it usually means your content is getting more visibility, and your SEO strategy is moving in the right direction. 💡 Expert Tip: Organic search is still the main source of traffic, but search is evolving. Some websites are also starting to get traffic from AI platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity. This is part of a newer strategy called GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), which focuses on making content easier for AI systems to understand and surface in answers. To prepare your site for visibility AI-generated answers, see our guide on Generative Engine Optimization. See Your Organic Traffic With MonsterInsights You can track your organic traffic using Google Analytics, which is one of the most popular and free tools for website analytics. Inside Google Analytics, you’ll need to explore reports and filter traffic sources to find your organic search data. While it’s very powerful, it can feel overwhelming for beginners because there are multiple menus, reports, and settings to navigate. That’s why I recommend MonsterInsights instead. We use MonsterInsights across WPBeginner because it is the best analytics solution for WordPress. It connects directly with Google Analytics but simplifies everything by showing your most important SEO and traffic data inside your WordPress dashboard. Once MonsterInsights is installed and connected to Google Analytics, go to Insights » Reports in your WordPress dashboard, where you will see an ‘Overview Report.’ This gives you a simple breakdown of your website traffic, including how much is coming from organic search. If