How to Build an Ecommerce Website using WordPress?

WooCommerce and WordPress are both free, open-source software. One of the reasons many people choose WooCommerce is because, like the software itself, costs are customizable — you have a lot more control over what you spend and when than with most other eCommerce platforms.

Building an ecommerce website is not easy if you don’t have technical understanding and experience.

Understand

To build a successful ecommerce website you need make it better than your competition, in every possible way. It has to be impressive, yet easy to use so that people can place their order without going through endless pages. It has to follow a proper sales process at front end and support it through store management functions at the backend. And it has to rank high on search engines. So, how to go about it?

Here I will share information that will help you create an ecommerce website that is not only built to sell products or services, but also delivers top ranks on Google in combination with excellent speed, simplicity and functionality.

This knowledge has been gained through years of experience building, managing and marketing ecommerce websites. It will come as an immense help to those who are comfortable building wordpress websites, but haven’t built any ecommerce website as yet.

Get Started

Making a sale is about trust. If your website has interesting and engaging content which presents your products or services in a way that makes visitors believe that they are getting good value at a reasonable price then they will certainly consider it.

So have the logo, banners, all the website text, product details, images ( light files) ready. Make sure it is better than your competition. Less is not an option if you want to succeed.

After you have made a fresh wordpress installation remove sample pages, posts and plugins for a clean start.

Theme

Download Customizr theme for your store and activate it. It is simple, fast and great for SEO.

Plugins

Each and every plugin here has a specific use and they work together beautifully, so you don’t have to bother about compatibility issues. This is a real time saver.

Given below is the list of plugins that you will need to download for your website:

WooCommerce – An eCommerce toolkit that helps you sell anything. Beautifully.

Rearrange Woocommerce Products – a plugin to Rearrange Woocommerce Products listed on the Shop page

Side Cart WooCommerce – Manage your cart from just a click away

WP Sheet Editor – WooCommerce Products – Edit WooCommerce products in spreadsheet.

WPC Smart Quick View for WooCommerce – WPC Smart Quick View allows users to get a quick look of products without opening the product page.

Order / Coupon / Subscription Export Import Plugin for WooCommerce (BASIC) – Export and Import Order detail including line items, From and To your WooCommerce Store.

WooCommerce Advanced Free Shipping – WooCommerce Advanced Free Shipping is an plugin which allows you to set up advanced free shipping conditions.

WooCommerce Cart Abandonment Recovery – Recover your lost revenue. Capture email address of users on the checkout page and send follow up emails if they don’t complete the purchase.

WooCommerce GST – India Specific – WooCommerce addon for GST.

WooCommerce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips – Create, print & email PDF invoices & packing slips for WooCommerce orders.

WooCommerce Weight Based Shipping – If you are selling stuff and your courier charges shipment by weight – Simple yet flexible shipping method for WooCommerce.

Sold Out Badge for WooCommerce – Display a “Sold Out!” badge on out of stock products

Back In Stock Notifier for WooCommerce | WooCommerce Waitlist Pro – Notify subscribed buyers when products back in stock

Free Shipping Label – Increase order revenue in WooCommerce store by showing your customers just how close they are to your free shipping threshold.

Product CSV Import Export (BASIC) – Import and Export Products From and To your WooCommerce Store.

AddToAny Share Buttons – Share buttons for your pages including AddToAny’s universal sharing button, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, WhatsApp and many more.

Admin Bar & Dashboard Control – Disable admin bar and control access to WordPress dashboard.

Advanced Woo Search – Advance ajax WooCommerce product search.

Akismet Anti-Spam – Used by millions, Akismet is quite possibly the best way in the world to protect your blog from spam. Your site is fully configured and being protected, even while you sleep.

ATUM Inventory Management for WooCommerce – The ultimate stock management plugin for serious WooCommerce sellers

Auto Cart Update On Quantity Change – Auto-update WooCommerce Cart when Quantity Changes, Remove “Update Cart” button and Do It Automatically.

Better Notifications for WP – Supercharge your WordPress notifications using a WYSIWYG editor and shortcodes. Default and new notifications available. Add more power with Add-ons.

Product Feed PRO for WooCommerce – Configure and maintain your WooCommerce product feeds for Google Shopping, Facebook, Remarketing, Bing, Yandex, Comparison shopping websites and over a 100 channels more.

Classic Editor – Enables the WordPress classic editor and the old-style Edit Post screen with TinyMCE, Meta Boxes, etc. Supports the older plugins that extend this screen.

Click to Chat – Lets make your Web page visitors contact you through WhatsApp with a single click/tap

Content Views – Query and display posts, pages in awesome layouts (grid, scrollable list, collapsible list) easier than ever, without coding!

Customize Login Page – Simple, Customize your Login Page with your Logo and Your site theme

Disable Comments – Allows administrators to globally disable comments on their site. Comments can be disabled according to post type. You could bulk delete comments using Tools.

Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights – The best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. See how visitors find and use your website, so you can keep them coming back.

Hustle – Start collecting email addresses and quickly grow your mailing list with big bold pop-ups, slide-ins, widgets, or in post opt-in forms.

Import and export users and customers – Using this plugin you will be able to import and export users or customers choosing many options and interacting with lots of other plugins

kk Star Ratings – Allow blog visitors to involve and interact more effectively with your website by rating posts.

LiteSpeed Cache – High-performance page caching and site optimization from LiteSpeed

Login No Captcha reCAPTCHA (Google) – Adds a Google CAPTCHA checkbox to the login, registration, and forgot password forms, thwarting automated hacking attempts

Peter’s Login Redirect – Redirect users to different locations after logging in. Add URL to define Login/logout redirects.

Profile Builder – Login, registration and edit profile shortcodes for the front-end. Also you can choose what fields should be displayed or add new (custom) ones both in the front-end and in the dashboard.

Quick Contact Form – A really, really simple GDRP compliant contact form. There is nothing to configure, just add your email address and it’s ready to go. But you then have access to a huge range of easy to use features.

Re-Add Text Justify Button – The most simple plugin to re-add text justify button in the WYSIWYG on WordPress 4.7+

Really Simple SSL – Lightweight plugin without any setup to make your site SSL proof

Redirect 404 Error Page to Homepage – Simple redirect wordpress plugin, all 404 error pages are redirected to homepage.

SEO Editor – Edit SEO data in bulk to save time.

SSL Insecure Content Fixer – Clean up WordPress website HTTPS insecure content

Top 10 – Count daily and total visits per post and display the most popular posts based on the number of views

UpdraftPlus – Backup/Restore – Backup and restore: take backups locally, or backup to Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, Rackspace, (S)FTP, WebDAV & email, on automatic schedules.

Wordfence Security – Wordfence Security – Anti-virus, Firewall and Malware Scan

WP Copy Protect – This plugin protect your site from copy your content and will disable the text selecting and Right click options for your Content privacy.

WP Mail SMTP – Re-configures the wp_mail() function to use Gmail/Mailgun/SendGrid/SMTP instead of the default mail() and creates an options page to manage the settings.

XML Sitemaps – This plugin improves SEO using sitemaps for best indexation by search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and others.

Yoast SEO – The first true all-in-one SEO solution for WordPress, including on-page content analysis, XML sitemaps and much more.

Configuration

After you have downloaded and activate all the plugins, your website dashboard will be all populated. Go through each tab one by one and define what you want it to do.

Setup Woocommerce plugin through the settings tab. Define means of payment and a payment Gatway – you will need to download a gateway specific plugin to integrate with Woocommerce . Define taxes as well.

Configure your website front page as SHOP Page. Update permalinks. Add Logo, Description and start adding pages like About Us, Testimonials, FAQs, Help, Terms and Conditions and Contact Us. Update Menu.

Start adding products one by one. Define MRP, Sale Price, SKU Etc. Create website menu and define content of the widgets.  Update your store’s SEO.

Define coupon codes to offer discount to your customers. Activate free shipping option above a specific amount to encourage your customers to buy more.

Define your email settings to ensure that your customers get all the necessary updates – order confirmation and invoices in their mail automatically.

Now, connect with Google Analytics using MonsterInsights.

Test Functionality

This is the most important step. Visit your store as a customer and try to place an order. Can you do it within 5 minutes? Is the process intuitive? Use different devices – Mobile, Tablet and Laptop to see how your web store looks and feels. It is able to generate interest? Would you be convinced enough to place an order if you visit your own store as a customer? Review each step and ask yourself, how you can make it easier, better. Redefine settings till you have it all in place, just the way it should be.

Backup

Now that your store is ready and working fine in every way – take a backup using Updraft. It is one of the most important steps, where you can reset your store to working status, if anything goes wrong. Remember to take complete backup at least once every month and keep the backup files – safe and secure.

Reach Customers

It is time to start marketing your store. Share with family and friends, seek their opinion and ask them to be your first customers. These people are your first contact and anyway buy from other online stores, so why not your own?

• Creating your Google Listing ( if you are a local business – this will help immensely). Here you can add everything about your business, get customer reviews and connect with local customers fast.
• Create Pages on major social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest. Share your weblinks, product features, video urls, offers and updates from time to time. Keep it interesting so that people add to your network.
• Create corporate videos, product videos, customer testimonial videos and post on Youtube – simultaneously embed these in your website pages.
• Use platforms like Quora and QsAns.com to market your store and products.
• Create coupon codes with special discounts for repeat customers. Keep them hooked and bring them back for more.
• Follow upon your abandoned carts with automated reminder emails.
• Create useful articles and blogs that give more information about the products and how this is helpful to customers.

Done properly you can see your store in Top Google ranks for defined keywords in 3-4 months.

Do it Right

For someone who is not technical and does not understand complexities of setting up an eCommerce website, a better option would be to hire an expert who knows what to do, how to do it right and get things done efficiently and properly. That will not only save time, but also reduce errors on your web store. An expert will know how to set up all the needed function and make your eCommerce website seo friendly as well.

You may consider Digital Marketing Services India which offers end to end eCommerce website building services along with expert digital marketing services to get your store on top google ranks at affordable prices. Visit: https://digitalmarketingservicesindia.in

Here are some steps to create an eCommerce website with WordPress:
Step 1: Purchase a domain name.
Step 2: is to find a hosting partner.
Step 3: Set up WordPress on your domain.
Step 4: Set up eCommerce plugins.
Step 5: Select the appropriate WordPress Theme
Step 6: Include products
Step 7: Include payment gateways.

WordPress is the most popular blogging website for a reason. The program is easy to use and provides so many options for making your blog stand out and look just the way you want it to. However, you need to know how to use the site to get the most from your experience. Follow the simple tips below to make WordPress work for you..

Try to use a landing page when you are using wordpress on your site. This is a great alternative to displaying your current posts as it gives your site flavor and pizzazz. You can even use Premise for WordPress, which is a premium solution that can get you started with the process.

Be sure to stay on top of updates! Many updates to add-ons or WordPress itself are security-based, meaning your site could be compromised if you don’t update the software. If it’s telling you a new update is available, install it as soon as possible to protect your site from harm.

Remember to make your sidebar as concise and clean as possible. You don’t want it to be full of 100 links, ads and buttons. Instead, only put what is important in your sidebar and, if you need more links, put them into submenus which appear when the user mouses over your main menu.

Set a publishing time for your blog posts. When editing an article for publication, you can select when it will be published. It’s a good idea to set regular updates for a specific date and time. To really stay on top of keeping your blog up to date, put your blog posts in ahead of time and let WordPress post them to your blog for you.

As stated above, there is a reason WordPress has become the leader in blogging websites. The many options and easy experience makes the website more popular than the competitors. Use the tips above to learn how to use the platform. They also help ensure that you are getting the most from the popular blogging website.

Installing WordPress on your server after selecting a trustworthy hosting company is the first step in utilizing WordPress to create an e-commerce website. Select a premium provider or a theme from the WordPress theme directory that is suitable for e-commerce. Install the Woo Commerce plugin, which is made especially for e-commerce, and follow the setup wizard to set up the payment gateway, shipping methods, and tax computation, among other basic store configuration options. Navigate to the Products area to add products. Here, you can add photographs, prices, and descriptions. To further improve user experience, security, and SEO on your website, employ plugins. Finally, make sure everything is functioning properly by extensively testing your website before making it public.

To make your work easier, it is good to contact the best e-commerce website development company