An online store is what your business needs to attract the attention of potential customers. They can easily reach out to your store anywhere anytime and can make buying decisions conveniently. This is what an eCommerce website can do for your business.
Customers don’t like to rush in to make a buying decision. An eCommerce website offers the ideal period to think, discover, compare, and make a significant decision. Hence, your online shop is the ultimate platform to provide such convenience. You can make it even better when you choose the proper framework. None other than WordPress can serve you better in this aspect.
What is WordPress?
Probably, the most sought-after website development framework is WordPress. You will be astonished to know that nearly 40% of the internet is dependent on this framework. Every day, thousands of websites are launched using this platform for the utmost convenience. Its plugins are outstanding, offering exceptional features to cater to your website development reasons.
For eCommerce, WordPress is the ideal power station to boost your online platform’s performance. To date, it holds nearly 60.8% of the CMS market share alone, leaving the competitors behind. Why is the world obsessed with this framework, then? Let us take a quick look at the statistical evidence of using WordPress for developing an eCommerce website for your business.
- It offers more than 55,000 plugins for various purposes, developed by the communities and mostly open source. They can be easily installed and synced with the websites.
- More than 1 million top-performing e-commerce websites use WooCommerce, another open-source eCommerce platform designed using WordPress. Nearly 22% of the top eCommerce portals are powered by WordPress.
What else do you need to convince yourself to hire a WordPress eCommerce website development service? The most popular brands prefer using this website development fram using this open-source framework. ework for online portals. If you are looking for an eCommerce portal to take your business online, this is the best bet. Let us find out how you can start building your online business portal
Step by step eCommerce development with WordPress
1. Domain name
The primary step of setting an eCommerce website is to choose a domain name. It should be unique and catchy at the same time. This domain name will be the URL of your website with WWW at the beginning.
Finding a unique short and crispy domain name is not an easy task. You might have to buy an existing domain name with a higher price if not available for free. This is where you will need the assistance of a WordPress eCommerce website development service.
Once you buy that name from a registered user, the cost per annum to maintain that domain name will be nominal. The only thing you need to follow is to keep the domain name closest and relatable to your brand.
Experts suggest adding .com at the end as it is the most common to use. You can also go for unique domain endings regarding the location of your business. For global industry, prefer using .com. If you have a plan to enhance your business across the borders, using .com will be ideal.
Your domain name should be unique, catchy, and memorable. Make sure the name is relevant to your business name so that target audiences can easily relate to and recognize it. Also, renew the domain name every year to continue the service.
2. Hosting
The second step of creating a WordPress eCommerce website is to find the right hosting service provider. Once you are done with the domain name, start scouting for web hosting services. What does it mean? In simpler words, it means you are buying a space in the internet land to establish your digital presence.
Experienced website development services prefer buying hosting services big enough to accommodate future possibilities of growth. Make sure the patch of internet land you want to buy is good enough to accommodate your plans. For this, consult with the leading WordPress eCommerce website development service providers and explain your project. They will give you the right insights into buying the right size of web hosting services.
Proceeding to the next part of this step, define your business requirements well. Find out what your business needs to get hosted online. The definition of your business will help you evaluate the hosting service you need. Experts recommend staying away from shared hosting plans. Sharing a server with other websites escalates the risk of cyberattacks. Remember your website server will contain sensitive personal information of the users. Hence, avoid leaving loopholes and pitfalls while choosing a hosting service.
Check out the leading hosting services and their plans. Compare these plans and find out what else you can get at that price. If you are new to this, then choose a website development service to assist you. Go for the eCommerce powerhouse hosting services that will boost your online portal’s overall performance.
3. WordPress installation
The next step is to install WordPress, the framework architecture for your ecommerce website. There are two significant ways to start your WordPress eCommerce website development.
- One-click installation
This is the easiest one to choose for a WordPress installation. The experts also recommend using it. The automated process enables users to install all the required elements to kick-start WordPress for eCommerce website development. You will find a plethora of hosting options for one-click WordPress install. Sign up with a reputed hosting provider with convenient installation services and get started. The process is simplified by steps that are easy to follow.
- Manual installation
Suppose your chosen hosting provider is not serving one-click installation. In that case, you will have to download WordPress on your computer and upload it to the corresponding dashboard of the hosting portal. Follow the steps mentioned on the website from where you will download the eCommerce framework for free.
4. Installation and configuration of WooCommerce
As mentioned earlier, WooCommerce is the open-source plugin available on WordPress to develop your eCommerce website. It has a brilliant rating and excellent feedback from the users. For the primary development of an eCommerce website, this plugin is ideal as it has over 1 million active users across the world.
This plugin is developed by a community that understands the different requirements of an eCommerce portal. Hence, you will discover the respective free and paid extensions in this plugin suitable to your need.
Once downloaded and installed, check out the features mentioned below you will need for your website development.
- Product description pages
- Cart features and payment gateway
- Checkout process
- Shipping options
- Label printing
- Calculation of taxes
- Integration of other plugins such as Facebook, Mailchimp, Google Analytics, etc.
You can add various plugins that support WooCommerce for sending emails to your users, creating promotional content, and even measuring the performance of your website. Scout for such plugins and find their compatibility with WooCommerce.
After installation, fill in your business details in the respective tabs. The step-by-step progress of installing and configuring WooCommerce will guide you throughout the process. For instance, your business genre, WordPress themes, payment options, shipping options, etc. will also be displayed and selected one after the other.
5. Addition of products
After completing the installation and customization of WooCommerce on WordPress, proceed to enter the product details. Install Jetpack for tax-related concerns. Once done, you will find a page appearing and asking you to input your product details.
Make your product profiles ready and start uploading. Remember, you will need an accurate product description along with clear images to upload. Postpone this process if you are not prepared with the exact files you need. Here is what you will need to upload products.
- Product name
- Price
- Images of the main product or product portfolio
- Product description (short and long versions)
- Product category
There are different ways of adding products in this domain. Here is a glimpse of the list of product types you can choose from.
- Simple (one by one)
- Grouped
- Affiliate or External
- Variable
- Virtual
- Downloadable
Follow the guide provided by WooCommerce to categorize your products according to their types. You can either keep the products ordered or uncategorized based on the variance of your provisions. On every product page, you will need to provide the following information one by one.
- General tab that contains the price of the product and associated tax
- Inventory tab that shows the number of products you have in stock (SKU)
- Shipping tab contains the dimensions of the product and associated shipping costs
- Linked or related products that users can buy with it for up-selling your entire product line
- Attributes where you can add different versions of the product available in your inventory
6. Installation of additional plugins
Your WordPress eCommerce website development process is almost done. All you need is a particular set of accessory plugins to check on a few things. For instance, Yoast SEO will help you narrow your website’s SEO reach and searchability. Add a plugin that secures the information stored in the website server.
Wrapping up
This is the simplest way of creating your eCommerce website using the magic of the WordPress framework. You can create a primary set up to launch your business online. To get more out of this, you can hire a WordPress eCommerce developer to reap more benefits.
By hiring the right eCommerce development agency, your online portal will get a more professional look. The dedicated team will create unique themes, product-specific content, and well-defined product images and do the necessary.
By hiring a WordPress website developer, you can make this process more refined. Get industry insights from an experienced team and learn what is best for your online venture. Every attribute of your WordPress eCommerce website will be at its highest efficiency. Perform SEO and reach out to the target audiences better to generate more revenue.
Are you looking out to build a WordPress eCommerce Website? Reach out to us; we would love to hear from you.
