A great business name is essential for building a strong brand. It needs to immediately catch the attention of potential customers and become something that stays top-of-mind for the long term.

You could wait until you have a flash of inspiration and stumble upon an excellent brand name. But what if you want something to spark your inspiration right now? Perhaps a tool that could get your creative juices flowing and start you on the path toward success?

That’s where our Instant Business Name Generator comes in. We’ve recently revamped this free tool with the power of AI so you can uncover dozens of great ideas in seconds. 

Using the Business Name Generator

Start the process by visiting the Instant Business Name Generator and entering a keyword or phrase for your business idea:

Next, you’ll be presented with several options to choose from:

Want to see more options? Try the same keyword or phrase again or enter a different term to get a new set of ideas.

If you see a name that you like, click “Next” to purchase the domain name. You can choose from over 350 extensions to find the one that’s best for your new business.

Once you have a domain name, there’s no better place to host and build your website than WordPress.com. Choose any paid annual plan and you’ll get your domain name free for the first year. If you need help building your website, Built By WordPress.com, our own website design service, has you covered—and you’ll still get your domain name free.

3 tips for choosing your business name

While the Business Name Generator is helpful for effortlessly spinning up tons of ideas, you’ll still need to choose just one that’s going to represent your business. Here are a few tips to choose a name that sticks:

Simplicity is key

If your name has too many words, or is hard to understand, people might not remember what your business is called. Or they might be reluctant to recommend your business to others. Choose a name that isn’t likely to require repeating several times in conversation.

Make it memorable

Once you have a handful of ideas that you like, try sharing them with a trusted friend or two. Then, see if they can remember your ideas a day or two later. 

It’s not a perfect system, but as long as your friend is willing to help with your market research, it might help you determine which of your ideas has staying power. 

Own it everywhere

Once you have settled on your business name, buying the domain name is a clear next step. In addition, you should also make sure matching social media usernames are available across networks that your business might use. 

Be quick to create accounts and claim those handles, even if it might be a while before you’re ready to promote your business. It could save you some disappointment later on.

Try the Business Name Generator

If you’re planning on starting a business soon, then take the Business Name Generator for a spin. And if your big idea becomes a world-famous brand and people ask where you found the name? Well, we won’t even ask for any credit. We’ll just be glad we could help.

In this post, you learn the exact steps to build a free sales funnel using a tool called Systeme.

We’ll look at each component that makes a sales funnel work and drives consistent sales.

Once your sales funnel is built, you’ll be able to focus on driving traffic to it, nurturing your email list, and growing your business.

Let’s get started.

What is a (Free) Sales Funnel, and Why Do You Need One?

A sales funnel is a series of pages that takes visitors through a customer journey, from an uninformed stranger to a loyal customer.

Depending on where they start in the funnel sequence, they’re designed to strategically influence the prospect to become a lead and/or customer.

A funnel will typically move prospects through 4 stages of awareness:

1. Awareness: Becoming aware of a problem they want to solve. This could be your blog or social media presence
2. Interest: Seeking a solution for the problem. This might involve downloading a free lead magnet.
3. Desire: Becoming interested in what you have to offer by interacting more with your brand.
4. Action: Buying a product, course, or service you’re offering.

A sales funnel is important because it enables the ability to take people through each of these stages, resulting in much higher conversions than sending them to a single order form.

8 Components of a Free Sales Funnel

There are many components that make up an effective sales funnel.

Technically, you only need a product, a checkout page, and a payment processor, but this isn’t likely to give the best results.

Here, I’ve outlined everything you need to create the ultimate free sales funnel.

1. A Product or Service

Not to state the obvious, but you’ll need a product or service to sell, which you probably already have.

But if you don’t, you could start with a PLR product to create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and test things out first.

PLR.me is a great place to buy private-label products that you can use to sell as your own.

2. Landing Page (Optional)

The landing page is where you collect email addresses with a free lead magnet. It can also be used as a waiting list if you have a scheduled product launch funnel.

It’s an optional step because you can send people straight to the sales page if your audience already knows you and what you sell.

However, a squeeze page or landing page will usually convert higher because you’re offering something for free in return for the visitor’s email address.

3. Email Automation (Optional)

Email automation is then set up to nurture your list of subscribers and to sometimes deliver your lead magnet.

You can have multiple email sequences for different stages of the funnel.

For example, a welcome sequence after the delivery of the lead magnet shares valuable lessons for several days with an offer for a product at the end.

Another email sequence could be triggered for people who didn’t purchase a product or an upsell.

Having segmented email sequences for different leads offers personalized communication, resulting in higher conversion.

4. Sales Page

The sales page is where you write short or long-form copy with details of what you’re selling.

An effective strategy is to send people to a thank you page that also acts as a sales page.

You can offer new subscribers a product at a discounted rate, which can often convert well because the leads are warmer.

5. Checkout

The checkout page consists of an order form for people to enter their details and make a payment.

6. Payment Processor

A payment processor processes the transaction between you and the customer.

Many sales funnel builders process payments for you, whereas others will let you connect your own, such as Stripe or PayPal.

Even though this article is about building a free sales funnel, it’s important to note that you’ll still need to pay for transaction fees.

Funnel sites that charge their own fees will take a cut of the order, which is where they make their money.

Therefore, it’s usually a much cheaper option to use your own payment processor.

7. Upsells Order Bumps (Optional)

Upsells are extra offers that are made immediately after the order form because these leads are hot and more likely to buy something else.

They’re very effective because all they require for the new customer to purchase them is to click a button.

They don’t need to go through the checkout process again, causing less friction to make another buying decision.

This makes upsells a great way of increasing the overall Average Order Value (AOV).

8. Traffic

The last component of a sales funnel is essential, and that is traffic.

In other words, a potential customer.

You can drive traffic from a variety of sources, such as:

• Ads
• Social media
• Organic search (SEO)
• Or an email list

You can also send traffic to different stages of the marketing funnel.

For example, cold traffic who have never heard of your offer will need to be sent to the landing page.

Hot traffic is people who already know your offer, so they can be sent to the sales page or even the checkout page.

Using ads to send traffic is by far the quickest strategy. You can test different copy in your ads and on the landing page until you get a good conversion rate.

Social media will require an engaged audience to get enough traffic, but this type of traffic can usually convert better than ads, so you won’t need as much.

Organic search is traffic sent to your funnel from people who have searched for something in search engines. This will require you to create blog content that promotes your free offer or promotes your product directly.

Lastly, traffic from an email list has the best conversion rates because they have already shown interest and made a commitment by subscribing.

You’ll need to choose one of the other traffic sources first to build an email list before being able to send consistent email traffic.

How to Choose the Best Free Sales Funnel Software

In the next section, I’ll show you exactly how to build a free sales funnel using Systeme, an all-in-one sales funnel tool.

But why did I choose Systeme in the first place?

Mainly for simplicity and because it offered the most features for free compared to the other options.

Furthermore, Systeme uses Stripe as the payment processor and doesn’t charge transaction fees, making sales fees super low. You’re also able to build an email list of up to 2,000 people.

When considering the right tool for you, check to see if it offers all the components needed and how much they charge for sales fees.

I’ll review each of the tools later in this post, but here’s a quick glance at the ones I looked into:

• Systeme – Best overall
• Payhip – My second choice
• Podia – Great for communities
• Custom setup using WordPress

You can choose any one of these tools to build a free sales funnel. However, the steps involved will be slightly different from the steps shown below.

How to Create a Free Sales Funnel Using Systeme – Step-By-Step

In this step-by-step tutorial, I’ll show you how to build a free sales funnel using Systeme.

Here’s what the flow looks like. Each step assumes the lead accepts each offer:

1. Landing page with free lead magnet opt-in
2. Redirected to a one-time-offer sales page for an ebook
3. Sent to checkout order form
4. Redirected to an upsell for access to a support community subscription
5. Redirected to the thank you page

In the background, we’ll get Systeme to send the lead magnet and ebook through two email campaigns.

Then, Systeme will automatically send an email with access to the upsell support group.

So, before adding the steps to the funnel, we’ll need a few other things in place, like adding tags, setting up email campaigns, and connecting the Stripe payment gateway.

Let’s start with Stripe.

Step 1. Connect Your Stripe Account

We’ll use Stripe in this tutorial as they’re one of the payment processors with the lowest transaction fees.

First, you’ll need to connect your Stripe account to Systeme so you can take payments.

Click on the image in the corner and then Settings:

Then, in the left sidebar, click on Payment gateways and click Connect next to Stripe:

Log into your Stripe account when prompted and click Connect:

Step 2. Create Your Email Campaigns

There are two email campaigns we need to set up. One is for sending a free lead magnet, and the other is for sending a digital product if they buy it.

Here are the steps:

Click on Campaigns from the Email dropdown:

Then click Create:

Give your email campaign a name and click Save:

Click Create again, fill out the details, then click Save:

You’ll see a page below where you can write your email to welcome new subscribers. Also, make sure to upload your free lead magnet to the Attachments box, then click Save:

Repeat this step to create an email for your digital product. Don’t forget to attach the PDF in the Attachments. The email might look something like this:

That’s it for the email campaigns. On to the next step.

Step 3. Create a Tag to Trigger a Product Purchase

Now, we need to create a tag that will automate the sending of the digital product email campaign.

Click on Tags under the Contacts menu item:

Then click Create:

Name your tag and click Save:

This is all you need to do for the tags for now. Now, on to the funnel itself.

Step 4. Create Your Funnel Stages

Click on Funnels from the main menu:

Then click Create:

You’ll see the popup below. Give your funnel a name, select the Sell option, and choose your currency. Then click Save:

Next, you’ll see a list of pages on the left and settings on the right:

Let’s start by adding a landing page to collect email addresses.

Step 5. Create the Landing Page

To add a page, click on Add step:

From the popup, choose a name for the lead magnet, select Squeeze page from the drop-down, and click Save:

You’ll then want to drag the landing page step to the top:

On the right, you see a collection of landing page templates. Hover over the one you like and click Select:

Next, add the URL Path for the landing page:

Now, you’ll want to customize your page with the right text and maybe an image of your lead magnet. Click on Edit page to get started:

You simply click on the elements you want to edit and start typing. The settings on the left allow you to change colors or add new elements like images:

The last thing to do for the opt-in form to work properly is to make sure Submit form is selected when the button is clicked and To the next step is selected for contact registration:

Finally, click on Save changes and then the Exit button:

Here’s the end result of my landing page:

I simply made it more minimal, removing the navigation menu and adding an image to my lead magnet.

Step 6. Create the Sales Page

Next, it’s time to create the sales page. The steps are practically the same as for the landing page. Add a New step, give the page a title, and choose Sale page from the dropdown:

The sales page step needs to be second on the list:

Choose a sales page template and click Select:

Next, add the URL Path for the sales page and click on Edit page to start customizing:

There should be an order button on the sales page, which needs the Next step URL option selected under Action when button clicked:

Here’s what my sales page looks like:

Step 7. Order Form Settings

Now we’re onto the order form, where you’ll set the URL Path, choose the tag you created for the Resources, and set your Price plans:

For the Price plans, click the Plus icon, then Create a new one:

Fill out the details, choose One-time payment for the Price plan type and enter the Payment amount, then click Save:

Step 8. Thank You Page Settings

For the thank you page, choose your template, enter the URL Path, and edit the design if needed. The thank you page also needs to go last in the sequence:

Here’s what my thank you page looks like:

Step 9. Adding an Upsell

An upsell needs to go after the order form. Add the relevant details like this:

For the Resources, this is what people will get access to if they purchase the upsell. I’ve chosen Communities, which gives people access to a Facebook-like group inside Systeme:

For the Price plan type, I’ve chosen Subscription with a 30-day trial period, $29 per month after:

If you want your upsell to be a community, you’ll have to create it first from the Products dropdown. Or you can choose courses if you prefer:

Step 10. Automations

The last step is to connect everything up with automations. These are used to trigger the email campaigns when something happens.

Let’s do the digital product using rules. Click Rules under the Automations menu:

Then click Create:

Click the Plus sign next to Trigger:

Select Tag added from the options and choose the tag you created earlier:

Then under Action, select Subscribe to campaign and choose the email campaign that sends the digital product:

Now, when someone purchases the digital product, the tag is added, which will trigger the email to be sent with their download.

The last automation is to deliver the lead magnet. To do that, click on Workflows under the Automations menu:

Click Create and enter a name for the Workflow:

Your Workflow will need to look something like this:

The first is the Trigger. Select Funnel form subscribed and the lead magnet email campaign:

The second is a delay of 2 minutes, but this is optional.

The third step is an Action:

The Action needs to be Subscribe to campaign:

That’s it! You have successfully created a free sales funnel with Systeme. It’s recommended you go through the funnel process yourself to test that everything works.

I went through mine and received all the correct emails:

Best Free Sales Funnel Software to Consider

The following list is the tools I looked into when writing this tutorial.

Here’s a table of the best software that allows you to create free sales funnels.

Along the top are the stages in the funnel process and whether the tool has features for that funnel stage or if you can use something else.

Platform	Landing Page	Sales Page	Checkout	Payment Processor	Upsells Order Bumps	Email Automation	Fee on Sales
Systeme	Systeme	Systeme	Systeme	Stripe	Systeme	2,000 Subscribers free	2.9% + 30¢
Payhip	Payhip	Payhip	Payhip	Stripe	Payhip	EMS Integration	5% + Stripe fees
Podia	Podia	Podia	Podia	Podia	Not free	100 Subscribers free	8% + Stripe fees
WordPress	Page builder	Woo Commerce	Woo Commerce	Stripe	CartFlows	FluentCRM	2.9% + 30¢

Systeme – Best Overall

As we’ve seen in the tutorial above, Systeme offers a ton of amazing features for building sales funnels completely for free.

You can grow an email list of 2,000 people for free and send unlimited emails. There are various product types, such as courses, digital products, and even communities.

Furthermore, the free plan offers unlimited online course students and community members.

Other features include:

• Fully functioning website
• Custom domain
• Create unlimited blog posts
• Use your own Stripe account for low fees
• Deadline funnel for higher conversions
• Order bumps
• A/B testing

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Payhip – Low Fees and Easy to Use

Payhip was the runner-up because it offers features similar to Systeme, is reasonably priced, and is easy to use.

This sales funnel builder allows you to offer different types of products like courses, memberships, physical products, coaching services, and more.

All features are available in the free plan, and they have a fixed transaction fee of 5%, which is on top of the payment processing fee using Stripe or PayPal.

You can also use PayHip as your entire website and storefront, start a blog, and add a custom domain.

Email campaigns will need to be integrated with an external service provider, such as Aweber or Mailchimp.

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Podia – Great for Communities

Podia is another great option for building a free funnel and selling digital downloads.

Specifically, Podia is best suited for online courses and paid communities. However, you’ll need a paid plan to publish a course to the public.

You can start by selling digital products and a community, then offer courses once you start earning income.

There’s a website builder and advanced email marketing tools to build an email list.

Transaction fees in the free plan are 8% plus the fees from Stripe.

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WordPress + WooCommerce + CartFlows – Most Advanced Solution

The last option is to build a custom setup using WordPress. This is by far the most advanced approach with the most available free features at your disposal.

However, this will take substantial time to get everything in place and will require a steep learning curve to master.

That being said, here’s what your setup could look like:

• Landing pages and sales pages built with a page builder tool like GenerateBlocks or Elementor
• Sales pages and the checkout using WooCommerce
• Stripe for the sales process so low transaction fees
• Upsells using the free version of CartFlows
• Marketing automation using the free version of FluentCRM

Conclusion

In summary, a free sales funnel is an excellent way to convert more leads and sales. However, most tools charge high monthly fees to get the best features.

Not with Systeme. This funnel-building tool offers a lot of advanced features in its free plan, providing you with everything you need to get started.

Join Systeme here to easily build a free sales funnel fast.

Are you wondering how to receive Alipay payments in WordPress?

Alipay is a digital wallet based in China with over 1 billion active users. Accepting Alipay payments on your WordPress site means you open the door to a broader audience, potentially increasing your sales.

In this article, we will explain how to accept Alipay payments in WordPress. That way, you can tap into a large market of users who prefer using this payment method.

Why Should You Accept Alipay Payments in WordPress?

Alipay is a payment app that allows users to send and receive money online. It is a dominant player in the Chinese market and is now gaining popularity in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and across the world.

It’s also not just used by international users. Many domestic dropshipping stores that buy products wholesale use Alipay as well. That’s because Alipay is the primary payment method for Alibaba and AliExpress, which are two eCommerce giants.

Alipay is well on its way to serving over 2 billion customers worldwide, so adding it as a payment option will help you tap into a huge market and attract customers from regions where Alipay is popular.

That being said, let’s dive into the 2 ways you can accept Alipay payments. You can use our links to jump to skip ahead to the method you prefer:

Method 1: Easily Collect Alipay Payments With WP Simple Pay (Recommended)

For this method, we will use WP Simple Pay, which is the best Stripe payment plugin on the market. With this plugin, you can accept payments without needing to set up any complicated APIs on your site.

WP Simple Pay integrates into Stripe’s payment options, which allows businesses using Stripe to accept payments from customers who want to pay with Alipay.

The good news is you can use WP Simple Pay Lite since it can accept Alipay payments. Best of all, it’s 100% free.

For most businesses, we recommend WP Simple Pay Pro. This paid version accepts 10+ payment methods and offers recurring payments, buy now, pay later plans, and an advanced form builder.

For this tutorial, we will be using the Pro plan so that we can build a payment form to accept Alipay payments. The process is the same with the free plan, but you will have access to fewer features.

Step 1: Install and Activate WP Simple Pay

To begin, you’ll need to install and activate the WP Simple Pay plugin. If you need help, read our tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, the plugin will automatically launch the WP Simple Pay setup wizard. You’ll need to click on the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button.

Step 2: Complete the Setup Wizard

You’ll be taken to the next step in the process. From there, you’ll have to create a new Stripe account or connect to an existing one. Click the ‘Connect with Stripe’ button to move to the next screen.

Assuming you already have a Stripe account, you can type in your email address and click the ‘Continue’ button.

It will integrate your Stripe data into your site. That way, all of the payments you receive will go to your Stripe account.

From here, you’ll be prompted to select your Stripe account.

Then hit ‘Connect.’ Or you can choose to create a new account instead.

Step 3: Create a Form to Accept Alipay Payments

Once you’ve connected your Stripe account, you will need to create a payment form.

Go ahead and click the ‘Create a Payment Form’ button.

You will land on a template library where you can pick one from the many pre-built templates for your form.

Next, look for the ‘Alipay Payment Form’ and click on ‘Use Template.’

As soon as you choose the template, you will be taken to an intuitive drag-and-drop builder.

You will also be prompted to configure the General settings. This is where you will customize the title, description, form type, and more.

There are also options to add a CAPTCHA and email verification button to prevent fake orders.

If you go to the ‘Confirmation Page’ tab, you can configure where you direct users when they complete the form.

By default, WP Simple Pay will show a custom success page when a customer makes a payment. But you can select ‘Custom Page’ if you’d like to show a different page hosted on your WordPress site. This is a great opportunity to send them to a thank you page and even upsell them on more products or services.

Or, if you prefer to redirect customers to an external page, you can select ‘External URL.’ You can also add a ‘Payment Success Message’ to thank customers and tell them what they can expect from you next.

After that, you need to go to the ‘Payment’ tab on the left.

This is where you will set the ‘Default Price.’

And under the ‘Payment Methods,’ be sure to check off the box next to Alipay to begin accepting Alipay payments on your site.

You can also choose other payment methods, such as a Card or ACH direct deposit. If you have WP Simple Pay Pro, you will have full access to 13 payment methods, including Apple Pay, Google Pay, Afterpay, Klarna, Cashapp, and more.

Then, go to the ‘Form Fields’ tab on the left. Here, you can add or change any existing form fields.

All you need to do is hit the dropdown menu under ‘Form Fields’ and click ‘Add Field.’

You have plenty of options to choose from, such as phone, address, coupon, and more.

Step 4: Publish Your Alipay Form

Once your form is ready to go, make sure to save your changes. Next up, you are ready to publish and embed your Alipay payments form on your site.

Go ahead and click the ‘Publish’ button on the right side.

Now, you will need to embed the form in your WordPress website. Just go to the post or page where you want to include your form. This could be a services page, a product page, or anywhere else.

On the top left corner, hit the ‘+’ button.

Search for the WP Simple Pay block to add it to your page.

You’ll see the block appear in the block editor.

In the dropdown menu, simply select the Alipay payment form you’ve just created.

You will see the form embedded into your page.

Finally, hit ‘Publish’ or ‘Update.’

There you have it. Now you know how to easily collect Alipay payments on your WordPress site.

Don’t forget to test the form to ensure payments are going through.

Here’s an example of what the form should look like:

Method 2: Accept WooCommerce Alipay Payments With Stripe Payment Gateway Plugin

If you run a WooCommerce store, then you may want to use a payment plugin instead. While you can add a WP Simple Pay button or form to your product pages, it may not embed into the form as seamlessly.

With a WooCommerce plugin, Alipay will integrate smoothly into the payment page as a checkbox that customers can tick off during the checkout process.

Step 1: Install the WooCommerce Stripe Plugin

To get started, you will need to download the free WooCommerce Stripe plugin. This plugin will redirect users to the Alipay payment page, where they can log in and authorize the payment.

Go to the WooCommerce Stripe plugin page and click on ‘Free Download.’

From here, you will be directed to the cart page.

Check that the order details are correct and hit ‘Proceed to Checkout.’

You’ll be taken to the checkout page. All you need to do is enter your name and email address.

After that, just click on the ‘Pay $0.00’ button.

You’ll be directed to the thank you page.

Just click the ‘Download’ button so you can download the plugin files to your computer.

From here, all you need to do is install the WooCommerce Stripe plugin by uploading it to WordPress. If you need help, you can follow our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Step 2: Enable Alipay in WooCommerce

Upon activation, you need to head over to WooCommerce » Settings in your WordPress dashboard. Then go ahead and navigate to the ‘Payments’ tab.

If you scroll down the page, you will find ‘Stripe Alipay’ as a payment method.

Simply toggle on the button to enable Alipay for your WooCommerce site. Click on ‘Save changes’ at the bottom.

Then go ahead and click ‘Finish set up’ next to the Alipay option.

Step 3: Add Your Stripe Account

You will now be asked to integrate your Stripe account.

Just hit the ‘Create or connect an account button’ to add your Stripe account to WooCommerce.

All you have to do is choose your Stripe account and click ‘Connect.’

If you don’t have a Stripe account yet, then you can select ‘Create a new account.’

Step 4: Activate Alipay

Now, your Stripe account is fully connected to your online store.

You will need to go back to the ‘Payments’ tab. Next to the ‘Stripe Alipay’ method, click on ‘Manage.’

This is where you will be able to configure the Alipay settings, such as the name and description that appear on your checkout page.

Go ahead and click on the ‘Activate in your Stripe Dashboard link.’

You will be directed to your Stripe account’s payment method tab in the settings.

Scroll down to find ‘Alipay,’ and next to it, click on ‘Request access.’

From here, a popup message will appear asking if you want to activate Alipay payments.

Simply hit the ‘Continue’ button to accept Alipay payments in your WooCommerce store.

After you’ve requested access, you need to wait for Stripe to approve your account. It should take about 1-2 business days before you can begin accepting Alipay payments.

When you are approved, you should receive an email from Stripe letting you know that Alipay has been activated for your Stripe account.

On top of that, you will want to go to your Stripe account’s payment methods and make sure that it doesn’t say ‘Pending’ next to Alipay.

Otherwise, you’ll have to wait until Stripe approves your request.

Now, all you need to do is check that the Alipay method appears at checkout for your customers.

Go to any product page and go through the checkout progress. Under the order summary, you should see an option for customers to pay with Alipay.

When the customer places an order, they should be sent directly to the Alipay login page. That is where they can log in to their Alipay account and finalize their payment.

Then, the money goes straight into your Stripe account through the integration.

There you have it! Now, you are ready to accept Alipay payments in your WooCommerce store.

We also recommend adding other WooCommerce payment gateways, such as PayPal and Square, to give customers more options to choose from.

We hope this article helped you learn how to accept Alipay payments in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to easily accept credit card payments in WordPress and our picks for the must-have WordPress plugins and tools for business sites.

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