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July 13. 2019
You’ve probably heard the line “every beginning is difficult” at least once in your life. Perhaps misconceptions such as this one are precisely what has led you to believe that it is going to be somewhat difficult to start an online store with WordPress. We’re here to tell you – it most certainly is not. Here you’ll find a rather simple, step-by-step guide that will help you complete this task without any issues. There are just so many benefits of using a WordPress website. So, what are the things you should know before you begin handling your own online business?
There probably used to be a time when starting your own online store was an extremely complicated and time-consuming endeavor. Nowadays, however, just about anyone with a computer and Internet can start an online store with WordPress. Why and how? It’s simply because WordPress has been incredibly user-friendly ever since it’s beginnings in 2003. This is also why almost one-third of all websites are currently WordPress-based. So if you have any intention of starting your own business and selling something online – this is the easiest way to do it. All you need is some goodwill and less than one hour of attention. Naturally, you might need someone to take care of your website maintenance later on, but this shouldn’t be an issue since there are skilled professionals who can do this for you.
As we’ve already mentioned, you don’t need to fulfill any special conditions to start an online store with WordPress. But there are some things you need to have before you start. Those are:
You want the number of your customers to grow exponentially, don’t you? Well, your domain name is how they will find you. You want a name that will be easy to remember after hearing it only once. And think hard about whether your domain name can describe what you are trying to sell. Doing keyword research at this point would perhaps be a good idea. Your Google rankings will appreciate this move. Keep your domain name memorable, simple and easy to say.
Deciding to base your online shop on WordPress enables you to have a powerful base for your business. But it is WooCommerce that really transforms your website into an online business tool you really need. If you are wondering about the price of having a WordPress website for your business, the base package of WooCommerce is free and you can make it work without paid plugins. This means that you can have all the benefits of an online store that is both easy to use and practically free.
You should have no problems setting up WooCommerce. First, you should download and install the WooCommerce plugin for WordPress. You’ll need to install a WordPress theme that will be compatible with WooCommerce. After this, you want to add your products, one by one. For this purpose, you should use the Product Tab you’ll find in your WordPress Admin center.
If you already own a self-hosted WordPress site – after WooCommerce installation, you should go to the Plugins section of your dashboard. Here you will add, as well as activate, the WooCommerce plugin. Your installation will activate a setup wizard that will guide you through the process. After choosing the currency and the type of product you want to sell, the next thing you want to do is choose from the list of payment methods:
After choosing your payment methods, you’ll be able to choose shipping options – you should identify weight and dimension units that will be used for shipping cost estimates.
After completing the setup wizard, you’ll find yourself in a brand-new WordPress site you can use for your eCommerce needs. But first, you want to head to the WooCommerce Settings tab, where you can deal with:
Those who are familiar with WordPress will probably notice that WooCommerce has some differences, particularly with pages. After you complete the installation, WooCommerce will create new pages:
And after you complete the WooCommerce setup, how will the search engines send customers your way? In order to attract people who are interested in buying your products, you’ll need content. And you’ll need to do some serious research. Boosting your SEO is your primary task after launching your own website. Be careful when choosing your keywords and blog articles. Each and every page of your WordPress website should have an appropriate meta description, URL slugs, image alt tags, and content that readers would find easy to read and understand.
It is not 100% necessary, but installing some plugins is a good way to add features to your WordPress website. Luckily, you have over 45,000 plugins for WordPress to choose from! They’ll enable you to have the functionality and all the usual elements of any other professionally made e-commerce website.
As you can see, it has never been this easy to sell things online. You don’t even need a middleman anymore. You can simply start an online store with WordPress on your own. Yes, it might require some WooCommerce skills to do it, but the final result will amaze you. And who would have thought that setting up and having your own online store can be as simple as the several steps we have just explained? So all that’s left for you to do is start thinking of perfect domain names and of course, think of some creative ways to boost your SEO and let your content and the search engines draw your customers towards you.