This is a step-by-step guide for people who are just starting to build their ecommerce website. It will show you how easy it can be and why so many people want an online store of their own these days. For most product categories, online buying is routine and widespread. Investing in the ecommerce business today is your opportunity to partake in the industry’s expanding earnings. The sooner you begin, the faster you will create your brand and spread the word. A great website is the foundation of every successful online company. Don’t allow the fact that you haven’t made one before to deter you. It’s more intuitive and straightforward than ever before. Your first sale will not happen on its own. Continue reading to find out how to build an ecommerce website right now.
The Simple Steps of Creating an Ecommerce Site
The optimum moment to join the ecommerce scene is in 2021. People have turned to internet shopping as a new pleasure due to the ongoing epidemic, and they like the ease of purchasing from home. This indicates that you already have a sizable consumer base eager to buy your goods. By working with courier providers, you may even sell abroad. There are no geographical limitations! You’ll be laughing all the way to the bank if you concentrate on creating an easily accessible and optimized ecommerce website, selling high-quality items, and providing exceptional customer service. Making an ecommerce website is also more straightforward than ever, owing to a plethora of superb website builders like WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace, which take care of all the technical details. Once you’ve created an account and purchased a plan, you can get started right away. Furthermore, the services are both inexpensive and quick. For about $2.95 per month (if you use WordPress + Bluehost hosting), you can have a site up and operate in as little as 2-3 hours.
Another advantage of owning and operating an internet company is expanding and developing it. If you’re running sponsored adverts, for example, you can alter this depending on the behavior of your target audience. Hundreds of various themes and plugins are available to help you create the website of your dreams. You have complete control over your website’s appearance, functionality, and content. You’re in charge!
The Difficulties of Developing an Ecommerce Website
Everything depends on the quality of your website. You’ll lose a lot of business if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, takes too slow to load, or has low-quality product photographs. Users should access product pages with just one or two clicks. Then there’s the problem of tourists’ lack of confidence. Either obtain an SSL certificate or add security authentication and trust marks to show your visitors third-party confirmation that your website is safe. Customers will be hesitant to provide credit card information if they are unsure if they are on a secure website. Other major ecommerce issues include payment processing and delivery. Customers have a preference for specific payment options. If your website does not accept that payment option, customers may leave it. For example, if you only accept PayPal or Stripe payments and your consumer prefers to pay by credit card, they may not purchase your goods or service. The area over which ecommerce retailers have the least control is shipping. Because you must deal with other parties, there are many mistakes. Your goods may arrive damaged, which will reflect poorly on your company.
Step 1: Create an account using an ecommerce platform.
You’ll need an ecommerce account before you can establish an ecommerce website. This is a vital point in the process, as you will be making several essential choices. First, you must choose a reputable website builder, select a domain name, and register an account. Many ecommerce retailers make the mistake of hurrying through these unimportant selections. Make sure you’re not one of them. Take your time, consider the benefits and drawbacks, and then make your final payment. I strongly advise you to use Bluehost’s WooCommerce hosting solution, which is available as part of its WordPress-specific plans. It’s entirely configurable, secure, includes a free SSL certificate and domain name, and has fantastic WooCommerce features to assist you in creating, promoting, and selling from a safe online shop. Let’s get started.
- Go to Bluehost’s website to learn more.
To begin, you’ll need a Bluehost account—specifically, a Bluehost-WordPress-WooCommerce account. Then, go to Bluehost’s WooCommerce Hosting page and hit the Start Your Store button.
Now you can view the many price options, each of which provides the ideal combination of ecommerce tools, plugins, security, and professional support. In addition, you’ll discover numerous monthly lengths just above the price plans. Choose the 36-month program to get the most bang for your buck since it will save you money in the long term. Because we’re opening an ecommerce shop, click 36 Months and then Select under the Standard plan heading to select the Standard method on a 36-month contract.
- Type in your domain name here.
After that, you must set up your domain. You’ll be given two choices: Create a new domain or use an existing domain. You would input the name of the prospective domain you want and the extension, such as .com,.in,.site,.online,.website, and so on, in the Create a new domain area.
If you already own a domain and wish to use it, enter it in the Use a domain you own box and click Next. Are you lacking in motivation? Don’t worry; you may skip this step and establish a domain later, as we will here. Select I’ll create my domain later from the drop-down menu.
- Make a Bluehost account.
To establish a Bluehost account, you must first fill in your personal and payment information.
Fill up all of the required areas with your account and payment details. You may also buy accessories to improve your site’s security and functionality.
Hit Submit after you’ve completed all essential areas, including your personal and payment information.
After your money has been received successfully, click Create Account to begin the fun part.
- Create a Password for Your Account
The last step in this process is establishing a password for your Bluehost account. Click Create Account once you’ve supplied your domain name and password.
Note: After reading and agreeing to Bluehost’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, be sure to tick I have read and agree to Bluehost’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Congratulations! You’ve got a Bluehost account now.
Step 2: Set Up Your WordPress Blog.
When it comes to websites, WordPress is the standard, and this article is no exception. Because of the hosting plan you choose, you’ll get one-click access to WordPress after registering an account with Bluehost. As a result, you may get started on the following stages right immediately.
- Go to your Bluehost account and sign in.
To begin working on your ecommerce website, you must first connect to your Bluehost account. Next, you’ll be sent to the login page, where you’ll need to enter your email address or domain name, as well as your password. After entering your credentials, click Log In.
- Approve the Creation of Your Ecommerce Website
Click the Create your website option, which is aptly labeled as “the start of your journey.”
You may also migrate an existing website if necessary. If this describes you, choose Start Migration instead.
- Identify your area of expertise.
What would you say is the best way to characterize your website-building experience? Are you a novice or a seasoned pro? You may pick between the choices: no assistance required and A little help based on your response. I’m going to go with A bit of service for this article.
The next step is to choose the kind of website you wish to create, which in this instance is an Online Store.
Bluehost will ask you a few more questions to provide you with tailored suggestions for plugins and extensions. Note: You can always skip forward, but I strongly advise you to spend the additional five minutes now looking through them. Allow Bluehost to do the legwork for you by presenting you with tailored alternatives that will best fit your ecommerce website.
- Choose a Website Theme
Bluehost has a ton of excellent free and paid themes to help your website stand out from the crowd. First, choose whether you want to see free or paid templates, and then narrow down your theme choices to show ecommerce-specific possibilities. To do so, go to the top menu bar and choose the eCommerce option.
You’re spoilt for choice here! Have you seen anything you like? When the theme appears on your screen, please hover your mouse over it and select Use This Theme. I went with the Astra theme, which is available for free. Bluehost will begin installing WordPress immediately as soon as you choose a theme.
- Go to the WordPress website.
Click on the login to WordPress button in the upper right-hand corner of your Bluehost dashboard.
You’ll be directly taken to your WordPress site after signing up for the WordPress-specific hosting plan—no more steps are required.
Step 3: Integrate WooCommerce with your WordPress site.
WooCommerce is one of the most popular plugins for turning a simple WordPress website into an ecommerce shop for a good reason. It’s a free, open-source platform that’s also user-friendly. As a result, WooCommerce is a great lifesaver for online businesses, from product pages to payment gateway integration to automatic tax computations. Here, we’ll teach you how to add ecommerce functionality to your existing WordPress website.
- WooCommerce is now open.
In most cases, you’ll need to install and activate the WooCommerce plugin on your site. However, this is already taken care of with Bluehost’s WooCommerce plans. So you may immediately begin designing your website and filling in the essential information.
- Please provide your basic information.
You’ll be inputting all sorts of information about your shop, industry, product type, and company in this section.
You’ll have to answer all of them, from your location to the industry to the kind of goods you wish to advertise on your side.
- Select a Theme for Your Ecommerce Website
At this point, you have the option of continuing with the current theme you selected in Step 2 or switching to a different one. I’d want to stick with Astra. Therefore, I’ll continue with my current theme.
That’s all there is to it! You’ll now notice a popup welcoming you to the web headquarters of your WooCommerce shop.
Step 4: Fine-tune the settings on your ecommerce website
This stage focuses on configuring the essential features of an ecommerce website, such as payment gateways, shipping choices, and tax computations automatically. This may seem to be daunting, but it isn’t. All you need is the correct information, which this article gives.
- Configure Payment Options
Under the Get ready to start selling area of your WooCommerce dashboard, click Set up payments.
Choose which payment methods you want your shop to accept: Stripe, Razorpay, PayU, or direct bank transfer. After choosing Set up, you’ll have to link your accounts with your website, a relatively simple procedure. Stripe will enable you to accept credit card payments, so keep that in mind.
You may even accept cash on delivery if you have the necessary logistics in place. Another option is to use PayPal.
- Set Up Your Tax Rates
Clicking on Set up tax from the WooCommerce dashboard lets you Set Up Your Tax Rates payable by your customers. Click Configure.
After that, you’ll be sent to the Tax page, where you may set your usual tax rates and other tax choices.
- Configure your shipping options
Set up shipping from the list of visible choices on your WooCommerce dashboard to add shipping alternatives.
While WooCommerce will detect your location automatically, you may set your delivery prices. Furthermore, you have the option of selecting a fixed fee for each zone or making it accessible. When you’re finished, click Finish job.
- Make Your Ecommerce Website Unique
Create a personalized homepage, upload your business logo, and add a shop note to set yourself apart from the competition. To do so, go to the WooCommerce dashboard and select Personalize my shop. WooCommerce enables you to personalize every aspect of your website. As a result, you’ll never have to worry about stifling your creativity. Once you’re happy with how everything appears, click Finish assignment.
Step 5: Fill in the blanks with the products you want to sell.
If you don’t have something to sell, having an ecommerce website is pointless. That’s why the following step is to add the items you’d want to sell.
- To return to your Bluehost account.
Click here on the screen of your Bluehost interface, and you’ll notice several choices. This is what it will look like:
Confirm store information by going to Confirm shop information. While Bluehost will fill in most of the forms for you, I intend to sell physical and digital items under Products.
- To Sell, Add Products
Create your first product by clicking the Create button. After that, you’ll have two choices for adding goods to your WooCommerce store: manual or import. While importing a product is unquestionably quicker than manually inputting information, not everyone has one. I’ll describe the manual way with this in mind. First, select Add a Product from the drop-down menu. Manually enter product information. This will take you to your WordPress installation.
WooCommerce has already built up two examples to assist you in getting a better grasp of things, so you can always look at how they’ve set it up if you get lost. First, select Products from the left-hand WordPress menu sidebar, then Add New.
You have a blank canvas at this point. You’ll give the product a name, a price, and a description, as well as a category. You may also include product photos and any other gallery images. Other tabs have General (the one you’re now in), Inventory (monitor your inventory and add SKUs), Shipping (product dimensions and shipping costs), Linked Product (upselling related items), and Attributes (which is the one you’re currently in) (size, color, etc.) Check out WooCommerce’s thorough guide for additional information on product categories and other features functions. When you’re finished, click Publish.
You’ll get your product list, as well as the preceding examples if you select All Products from the Products side menu bar.
Before you press Publish, go through this brief checklist to ensure you’re adding the goods adequately. Make a title for your interests. Fill in the long and short product descriptions for the product you wish to upload. To rank better in the SERPs, try to integrate SEO terms. Add photos of the products. To do so, go to your WordPress dashboard and upload your creation. To keep things in order, arrange each product by category.
Step 6: Increase Conversions with Plugins and Additional Content
At this point, you’ve completed all of the steps necessary to launch a new ecommerce site. Following that, we’ll go through several strategies for increasing website traffic and, as a result, increasing income.
- Plugins should be installed.
The Jetpack tab on the WordPress navigation bar may have previously caught your eye.
This plugin may be used in conjunction with other plugins such as Yoast SEO, Security, and Site Reviews to activate payment arrangements and automate taxes, apply SEO best practices, improve security, and provide social proof, to name a few. Installing and activating plugins is as follows:
First, from the side menu bar, choose Plugins, then Add New.
Next, type the plugin’s name you wish to install in the search field and hit Enter.
Finally, click the Install Now or Activate option to add the plugin to your website.
From here, WooCommerce’s setup wizard will take over and guide you through the remainder of the process.
- Include Any Required Content
After you’ve sorted out the plugins, your ecommerce web site’s text and content should be your next priority. The following are examples of this:
Every word counts in this situation, so take your time and write carefully. “Buy Now,” for example, might come off as highly forceful if you’re still in the research stage. Something more subdued, such as “Learn More,” could be preferable. It depends on your objectives and the buyer’s location in the buying process. Descriptions of products As previously said, you should take the lead and develop SEO-friendly product descriptions. However, you must also arrange it appropriately and ensure that it is descriptive. To separate technical information from the text, I strongly advise utilizing bullet points about the Authors. Customers will want to learn more about you and your firm, especially if this is a new site. Great about us page text includes your vision and conveys the narrative of you and your company. Customers are interested in learning more about the individuals that make up a company—a page for contacting us. Finally, you must have a contact page where customers may contact you with inquiries or assistance. It may be extremely straightforward with fields for a name, email address, and message. You may locate or develop your own free contact page plugins.
Step 7: Publish Your Ecommerce Website.
Are you pleased with your website’s appearance, functionality, and feel? Then it’s time to go public with it and begin selling!
- Your Website Will Go Live
From the WordPress sidebar, go to Settings and then Privacy.
The first step is to make sure your privacy settings are in order. Every website, ecommerce or not, should have a privacy policy. Until you set a privacy policy page, WordPress will not allow you to go public. Fortunately, a template is already in place, but you may also alter it or create your own. Finally, double-check that all of your website’s essential pages—the home page, contact page, about page, and any other content—are set up and looking the way you want them to. Finally, press the Launch Your Site button.
Congratulations! You’ve completed the setup of your ecommerce website. Now is the time to sign up with Bluehost.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the steps to create an ecommerce website?
A: The two most important things you need to do before starting your ecommerce website are creating a product page and completing a checkout process. You can use Shopify or WordPress first, while WooCommerce and Magento are better options if you’re going with an online storefront.
How do I build an ecommerce website from scratch?
A: This is a tricky question for me to answer.
Which is the first step in e-commerce website design?
A: The first step in e-commerce website design is determining your site’s desired purpose. This can include things like a service, selling products, or generating revenue from visitors
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