It is common knowledge that a majority of websites active on the internet today are created using the WordPress CMS. the reason for that is simple. WordPress is easy to use and free. Its incredibly user-friendly and can be set up by anyone even if they have minimal technical knowledge. Even though many platforms are used today for creating e-commerce sites like Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento, WordPress is still being used by many online retailers or companies that even occasionally sell products through their website.
In this post, we will outline some of the steps that you need to follow to successfully set up and launch your new e-commerce site using WordPress.
There are several hosting providers that you can choose from including Hostgator, Bluehost, GoDaddy, etc. Go over all their hosting plans and choose the one that suits your hosting requirements. Compare costs as well as their customer support before making a decision and always check customer reviews.
Your domain name should be something that represents your business. It should also be memorable so that in the crowded internet space and the competitive e-commerce sector, your site can stand out. You can do some keyword research for this purpose to see what are some catchy terms related to your products that people are searching for in your target area. If you want to, we suggest registering all domain extensions like .com, .net, .us, etc to fend off copy cats.
Following the instructions shared by your hosting provider, you can log in to your Cpanel and install WordPress. After the successful installation of WordPress, you can log into your WordPress dashboard using your credentials. It is advised to keep the credentials to your Cpanel as well as your WordPress dashboard private.
WooCommerce takes a WordPress website and helps by transforming it into a fully functional e-commerce store. The steps for setting it up are simple and given below –
If the theme you are already using on your WordPress site is not compatible with WooCommerce or you are looking to update the theme, you can choose from a wide range of themes that are perfectly compatible with WooCommerce. Some of the best free WooCommerce themes are – TheShop, ShopIsle, eStore, Storefront, and Easy Commerce. There are several premium themes you can choose from too if you are not satisfied with the free ones.
If you are setting up a new site instead of converting an existing WordPress site to e-commerce, then you need to set up all the required pages like Home, About, Shop, products, Blog, Cart, Thank-you, etc. Even if you did have a working WordPress site before adding WooCommerce, some pages that are unique to e-commerce stores like the Shop and cart pages would still need to be set up.
After your e-commerce store is launched, the next step is to focus on its SEO. The first thing to do is install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin. It is considered one of the best SEO plugins and it is free. Then continue to customize its settings as per your requirement. Yoast can then be used to add Meta-Titles and Meta-descriptions to every single page and product. Sitemaps, robots.txt files can also be created using Yoast. There is also an alternate option to Yoast called All in one SEO pack which you can use if for some reason you do not wish to use Yoast.
The above steps outline the general process for turning your WordPress site into an e-commerce store. It is suggested that you hire a WooCommerce development company with years of experience in creating successful e-commerce stores for your online store. This will give you the help ofcertified professionals that know what achieving e-commerce success consists of.
