How to Create Your Ecommerce Website without Spending Too Much Time
It’s the challenging times of uncertainty we are living in now. Many businesses are afraid to fall apart before the crisis ends. Others thrive during the increased demand for specialized services during the lockdowns. All the things that can be bought online and delivered to your door are especially welcomed. People are turning to online shopping even when it comes to basic things they need for everyday life (like toilet paper).
If you own a business that depends on a physical location and foot traffic, it’s the right time to start exploring new territories such as ecommerce. You need to figure out a way how your customers can get what you sell without coming to your physical store. And what exactly does that mean?
It means that you need to create ecommerce website and do it as quickly as possible because your whole business can depend on it. So let’s discuss how you can do that both when you are starting from zero and when you have a website that doesn’t support the feature of selling and buying things and services online yet.
Starting from scratch
Before you are going to start you need to figure out two things, if haven’t already. The name and what exactly you are going to sell.
First off, you need to make sure that your domain name hasn’t been taken. You can rely on tools like Domainr for checking the domain’s availability. There are actually a bunch of other tools that you can choose from, so if you won’t like Domainr there are other options as well. If it happens that your domain isn’t available, then you need to search for alternatives or maybe just check out the service’s suggestions.
There is no need to rush and buying it right away if you are planning on using services like Shopify or WordPress. You can purchase the domain through their platform. It’s probably much easier.
The next step would be to check the search volume for what you are going to sell. Is there really a demand for what you have to offer? Is your product needed in the ecommerce market? Your services or products may be of excellent quality and your ads may be flashy and gorgeous, but if people aren’t searching for your product online right now, then the chances are they aren’t really going to buy it (with some exceptions, of course).
It would be reasonable to continue by using the keywords search tools like this one to check whether people actually go online and search for what your business is offering.
After you have seen the results, you need to do the math. How many products do you need to sell in order for your business to stay alive and even thrive? Then you can use the numbers from Backlinko that said that you can expect the CTR of around 3%.
But don’t get disappointed with the numbers you will get because there are channels of attracting potential customers to your site other than organic search.
Next, you should think about how you are going to market your online store. You need to create a marketing strategy.
The approaches and instruments you can use include:
- SEO – which basically means that you optimize the content of your website to make sure it appears higher among search results in search engines. You need to add keywords that are going to bring the maximum number of visits and are not actively used by other websites. If you don’t know what a backlink is and how important it is, then it’s probably worth learning more about SEO before you move forward.
- Paid search ads – while SEO usually takes some time to see the results, paid ads can in many cases do the job relatively quickly. And here again, you need to figure out the keywords that are going to work for your business and products. Paid advertisements could be a good option for getting the right prospects fast.
- Paid social ads usually provide highly precise targeting, and given the popularity of social platforms, they are sure plenty of fish there. There are many options to consider and many formats (including selling right on the platform), so be wise while choosing the right solution for your type of products. Usually, the prices for paid social aren’t extremely high, which makes them an available tool even for small businesses.
Now, with all that preparation behind, you are ready to start creating your online store.
You only need to pick the right online shopping solution. From our perspective, it would be fair to say that Shopify is one of the solutions that best suited to ecommerce.
You can read testimonials by other business owners who use Shopify and do your own research to find what better suits you. But one of the most important advantages it has to offer is the ability to sell on social platforms like Facebook.
After you bought your domain, you need to think about how your website will look. That’s the right time to focus on your online store web design. It’s important to make sure that your theme is right for your industry. Also, you might want to think about what best aligns with your brand.
Then there is a point when you need to upload pictures and descriptions for your products. Needless to say, powerful and appealing visuals are one of the strongest driving forces for successful ecommerce. Descriptions can also greatly influence the buyer’s decision. Besides that, you can use them for SEO purposes.
The next logical step would be to connect your website to an online payment system. You want to make sure that people are actually able to give you their money when they want to, right? If you are using Shopify, it’s easier than ever. You can just turn Shopify Payments on.
Adding ecommerce to your site
Making a separate website for your online store, if you already have a working site isn’t the greatest idea. The main reason for that is that the simpler the buying process, the better.
If you are using website builders, most of the time they have ecommerce solutions that you can add to your site (think about SquareSpace Commerce or WooCommerce).
When you use Wix and are subscribed to Business Premium, you can simply add your online store and manage it through the platform.
Another option would be to use a third-party solution. There is a number of them including Shoprocket and Snipcart.
Now you are pretty much good to go! The crisis brought by the coronavirus outbreak could be a perfect opportunity for you to enter the territory of e-commerce and succeed. So, what are you waiting for? Go on and create own ecommerce website without sacrificing too much time by following our advice. You still might want to dig more into the topics like SEO and SMM, but everything is in your hands, including the success of your future online store.
