The trick is to choose the right platform that offers everything you need without demanding a great investment on your part.
At IsItWP, we know the pros and cons of e-commerce stores. Therefore, we have designed this guide to help you learn how to create an online store in just 6 steps.
After that, we’ll provide you with the right tools and strategies you need to manage, market, and optimize your store for sales and conversions.
Before we get started, Create a Profitable Online Store this guide will show you how to create and run a complete online business. If you want to sell one or a few products without a large investment, see this guide: How to sell a product without an online store.
That said, let’s get started.
Step 1: Choose the Right eCommerce Platform
Choosing the right ecommerce platform is an essential step as it’s difficult to go back if your decision is wrong.
Ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce make it incredibly easy for anyone to sell products online. You can list both physical and digital products. There are also platforms such as Wix and SquareSpace. But most of these platforms have a high price, canada phone number data so you’ll need a sizable investment to get started.
We have a post that details the cost of ecommerce stores so you have clarity about the investment you need.
These ecommerce platforms are also fully hosted, which means you have less control over the design, customization, and management of your website.
There is another popular platform called WooCommerce that is completely free.
WooCommerce is the best WordPress online store builder that comes with everything you need to sell products. In addition, there are numerous extensions to add more features and functions to your store.
In addition, the WooCommerce and WordPress community is huge, so if you have any problems with your own online store, there are many online communities and forums available to help you.
Read more about why WooCommerce is the best online platform for store owners in our WooCommerce review.
Step 2: Create a WordPress Website
As we just mentioned, WooCommerce is part of WordPress, which is an open source, self-hosted platform.
We will show you how to get all of them at an incredible price so you can start your online store with a small budget. But first, a wired connection provides a more it’s important to know what they are and why you need them.
1. Domain name
A domain name is the address of your website, such as www.isitwp.com. Users can enter this URL in the address bar of the browser to visit the site.
You can think of it as if you are buying an online property in which you will install your store. The advantage of self-hosting is that you will have complete freedom to choose the domain name you want.
Ideally, your domain name should match the name of your company or at least something similar. This makes it easy for the customer to find your website and recognize your brand.
So, for example, global seo work Apple’s domain is apple.com. But if it were applephone.com, people would still recognize the brand.
If you’re having trouble creating a brand name, you can use our free domain name generator to help you find something amazing.
Just type in the keywords and the tool will provide you with various ideas of brand names. The tool also checks the availability of domain names, so you don’t have to worry about choosing a name that has already been used by someone else.
Domain names start with values as low as $0.99 per year and can reach tens of thousands of dollars. It all depends on the value of the name you choose.
For a more detailed explanation, see our article: What is a domain name and how does it work?
2. 2. Hosting on the Web
While the domain name is like your real estate, a hosting server is like a brick-and-mortar store you use to house everything that belongs to your store.
A server is where you securely store your website’s files and data. When a visitor arrives at your website, the server sends the data to the browser and displays the website to it.
Servers are expensive, Create a Profitable Online Store but you don’t have to buy one. Instead, you can subscribe to a web hosting company’s WordPress hosting plan and they will allow you to rent space on their servers.
You can get an affordable plan from some of the best ecommerce hosting companies. Some hosts even design plans designed specifically for WooCommerce stores. These plans usually cost around $10 to $20 a month.
3. SSL Certificate
When people start to visit your website, data is transmitted between the server and browsers. If a hacker manages to intercept this data, he can misuse it.
To ensure that this does not happen, you need to install an SSL certificate. This will encrypt all data sent to and from your website. When you install SSL, you will see that your site has a padlock in the address bar and uses
If you’re running an online store, this is a top priority as you’ll deal with sensitive data such as customer payment details, shipping fees, and contact information.
You need to ensure that your website is secure so that a data breach does not occur.
You can get an SSL certificate for free with basic encryption using Really Simple SSL, but if you want better protection, Create a Profitable Online Store you can purchase a premium certificate with your web host or an SSL provider.
The best way to get these three things in a single package is through Bluehost. They are the best web hosting provider on the market and are even officially recommended by WordPress.org.
Bluehost has a dedicated plan for WooCommerce. They take care of installing WordPress and WooCommerce so that your website is ready to be customized right away.