Have you been wondering whether having an online store would be beneficial for your product or service offering?
We are here to tell you that it definitely is. Especially now in this unprecedented time with various challenges facing us, most notably restrictions we have been put under when it comes to going shopping and so forth.
Many people have turned to shopping online in order to maintain social distancing, but even before all of this people really embraced the culture of shopping online … for just about anything really.
So yes, having an online store would be very much in your favor. But how do you go about setting one up and making it successful.
In this series of blogs we will be looking at the 3 steps of setting up a successful online store. We will look in detail at the various things that make an online store work and be attractive to the consumer.
Are you ready? Let’s get shopping!
THE BUILDING OF AN ONLINE EMPIRE
Okay, so you may not really want an empire right off the bat but many businesses may have that vision for the future, and to get there you need to have the right platform and grow from there.
Before we actually get into the full on set up, let us quickly look at some of the things you will need to get started.
DOMAIN NAME – This will be the title you will use for the name of your store.
WEB HOSTING – This is your websites home on the internet
ATTENTION – You will need to have at least 30 minutes (can you spare it?) of time where you can sit and set up everything for your online store
Now the steps that will be provided are mostly looking at a WordPress website when building an online store. There are other platforms but this article will be referencing how to build your store when using a WordPress website.
One other thing you will definitely need is an SSL certificate and this is so that you may obtain payments via the online store.
LET’S GET STARTED
Choosing the right store platform is imperative to creating the most impressive and functional online store. You can go with Shopify or you can use WordPress + Woocommerce.
Shopify is widely used and very user friendly and successful. But we will be looking mostly at the WordPress and Woocommerce combination.
As mentioned before you will need a domain name (so that people know what to type in when they want to find your website), web hosting (there are many available), and an SSL certificate which will give your website that extra layer of protection so that you can offer a secure online payment portal.
Now you can get all these things in one place, your domain name, web hosting and SSL certificate, but if you are not too sure where to look, you can find a list of WordPress approved web hosting service providers here.
You will want to get all these steps sorted out first before you actually start setting up your website, adding product, and payment options.
THAT’S A WRAP …
So we conclude the FIRST part of our THREE part article series detailing how to build an online store using WordPress.
The things which we detailed above are the first and most basic steps needed to take before you can actually start getting into the more meticulous and technical part of things.
In the following two parts we will look at, setting up Woocommerce, adding products, adding payment methods, what themes work well for your specific offering and many other things as well as finishing off with how to use WordPress and Woocommerce to grow your online business presence.
Don’t forget to pop back for our next segment and let us help you get online and offer your consumers an alternative way to shop your product. Need some advice? Get in touch with one of our highly trained consultants at Creative Ground.
