Over the past few years, online shopping has been steadily growing in popularity. The ability to find items and make purchases that are delivered to your door without the need to leave the house is very appealing. And over the last twelve months, the COVID19 pandemic has led to an even bigger boom in online shopping as people spend more time at home and stores are temporarily closed for non-essentials. So, it’s a great time for entrepreneurs to start thinking about launching an online shop. If you’re considering starting an online store with WordPress, there are several factors to think about. Here’s what you’ll need to get started.
Hosting and Domain Name
Make sure that there is a domain name available for your chosen business name. A domain name that is as close as possible to your business name will make it easy to remember. While there are various suffixes available for domain names, .com is always the best option to pick since it is universally accepted and there is less risk of your customers forgetting your web address or accidentally being redirected somewhere else. You can find WordPress hosting that is designed to support an eCommerce site at https://www.wsidigitalweb.co.uk/best-wordpress-hosting-uk/. Many hosting providers will also include a free domain name with their hosting plans. You’ll also need to ensure that your hosting plan includes an SSL certificate to encrypt any user information that is entered into the site and add an extra layer of security and trust.
Which eCommerce Plugin?
When it comes to building an online store with WordPress, there are several different eCommerce plugin options to choose from. WooCommerce is by far the most popular, and it is used to power over 30% of online stores around the world. Before downloading and signing up to WooCommerce, make sure that you have arranged web hosting, a domain name, and an SSL certificate.
Choosing a Theme for Your Website
You will want a website theme that reflects your business and the products that you sell, along with being modern and user-friendly. When it comes to choosing a WordPress theme for your website, there are several different options to choose from. WordPress offers a wide range of both free and paid themes, or you can have a custom theme designed specifically for your website. You can also customise blank themes yourself using a plugin tool like Elementor. Whichever you decide, the key is picking a website theme that is easy for your visitors to use and a good fit for your brand and products.
Site Content
Your website should not only display products for sale but plenty of information on your brand for customers to learn. You’ll need to write some content that explains to customers what you do and what your brand is all about; this is usually displayed on the homepage or an ‘About Us’ page. You will also need to ensure that customers can easily get in touch with your business if needed. One of the best ways to do this is by adding a live chat option to your website that customers can use to instant message you. You can do this directly to your Facebook business page or use a service like Tawk. Make sure that your business contact information is displayed clearly on the website in the header or footer, along with a dedicated page for contact details and directions if you have a physical store.
Adding Products
Once you’ve set up your site, the next step is adding the products that you’ll be selling on your online store. You can do this easily by heading to the products section in WooCommerce and selecting add a new product from the sidebar. This will take you to a page where you will find various options to add different product titles, categories, and add images and a description for your product.
Choosing Site Images
When choosing images for an eCommerce store, it is almost always best to use images of the products that you are selling since these create interest in what you do and help you connect with your customers while showing your products off. There are several types of images that you will need to display on your website. On the home page, you may need one or more hero images, while other images can be used to represent product categories. It’s also worth taking photos to use on the ‘About Us’ page, especially if you’d like to include a photo of yourself and your team for a more personal touch. When it comes to product images, professional photos in good lighting that show off the product from all angles are the best option. You may also want to consider adding product videos so that your customers can get an even more in-depth look at what you offer.
Payment Options
With WooCommerce, you can easily accept a wide range of different payment options from customers shopping at your online store. It’s a good idea to offer your customers as many different payment options as possible to ensure that buying your products is accessible. All major credit and debit cards are expected to be offered as standard, and most online stores offer customers the option to pay with PayPal. To attract even more customers, you might want to offer the option to spread payments over several months with a service like Klarna, which can be useful for stores that sell expensive items.
SEO
Making sure that your WordPress eCommerce store is optimised for search engines should be a key priority. SEO can take a lot of time and effort, so it’s worth outsourcing the work to experts at WSI Digital Ltd who can help you improve your Google ranking and get the results that you want. In addition, WordPress offers a variety of plugins that you can put to use for SEO, including Yoast SEO which is recommended by professionals.
WordPress is a popular option for setting up an eCommerce store thanks to the WooCommerce plugin. If you’d like to take advantage of the boom in online shopping and start your own online shop, you can easily launch your business using WordPress.