You’re probably wanting to create an ecommerce website for your business right now. And that’s great!
All of the current ecommerce statistics show that this is the way to go. Online shopping will likely remain high even after the pandemic subsides.
But like a lot of things, there is a right and a wrong way to create an online store. And if your business is all you have, then you need to make sure you do things the right way.
So let’s run through a list of things you need in order to create and run a successful ecommerce website.
Start with a Plan
Everything needs to start with a plan. If you don’t create a plan, really you’re just planning to fail.
The good news is that you don’t need a plan that’s super complex. Really, a simple plan written in a Google Doc is good enough, as long as everyone involved in creating this new online store understands what’s going on.
Here are some of the most important things that need to be in your plan.
First, you need to make sure you have a process for fulfilling orders and shipping items to your customers. It’s great to make sales through your website, but it’s critical that your customers receive their orders in a timely fashion. So make sure you create the process for fulfilling those orders ahead of time and don’t try to figure things out on the fly with hundreds of orders that need to be shipped.
Second, start to think about the content that you’ll need for the website. You might think more about the design when building the website, but it’s the content that really matters in the end. That’s what’s going to convince someone to buy that product. So take some time to think about the pages you’ll need content for — like the homepage, about page, contact page, team page, etc. — and start working on that content. Also start to work on your product descriptions. You’ll be happy you did this later on.
Also, think about your web host and domain name. If you want, you can take a deeper dive into the world of domain names in this blog post. And we’ll talk about web hosts in the next section.
Finally, really think about the website and what other things you might need, like photos or videos. I promise you that you can’t really overthink things too much here in the planning stage.
Get a Quality Web Host
I’m probably going to say this until I’m blue in the face, but you need a quality web host for your ecommerce website. Period. End of story.
Those $5 a month web hosts aren’t going to cut it for you at all. There are so many things that could go wrong. First, the reliability of those web hosts isn’t all that great. And when you need your website running 24/7, you don’t need to be constantly worried that your website isn’t up.
Second, you get the bare bones when it comes to features. Forget about backups and easy SSL certificates. You essentially get web hosting and that’s it.
Finally, because of that, you’re going to also have security concerns, both with your website and other websites on the same host that could allow someone to get into your site. And with an online store and taking payments, you can’t have that at all.
So don’t even think about using them. If you need a cheap-ish hosting, you’ll want to start with GoDaddy and Bluehost. These are two solid hosts that can easily power your online store to meet your needs. But at the same time, you probably won’t have the same fancy features.
For that, you’re going to want to look at WP Engine (WordPress only), SiteGround and Liquid Web. These will be a little bit more expensive (WP Engine is $29 a month for a single site), but you get great quality, security, daily and on-demand back ups and loads of other features.
So make sure you have a quality web host.
An Offline Organizational Structure
Next, you really need a solid offline organization structure to take those orders, process them and then ship them out to your customers.
This is something that can easily be forgotten about as you see all of the positives and possibilities with an online store. And not having a structure in place before you “make it” can result in struggles.
What’s going to happen if you suddenly see a spike in sales out of the blue? Do you have the ability to get all of those orders fulfilled and out the door in a timely manner? And do you have a process for contacting customers to make sure you at least are communicating with them in case something goes wrong?
Having that structure figured out ahead of time can alleviate some of the pain and frustration you might feel if you run into a similar situation.
So if it’s just you running the business, make sure you have your own process and know how you’re going to handle the offline side of things. And if you have multiple employees, make sure you know who’s doing what.
Great Product Pages
One of the most important pages on your online store is your product page. This is where the moment of decision happens. If the visitor likes what they see and is convinced, they will decide to end their buyer’s journey and become a customer.
If you’re going to spend a lot of time on one area of your website, the product page is a really good place to do it.
One of the biggest ways you can improve your product pages is just by having images of the product on there.
Let’s face it. We live in a visual world. We react more to something by seeing it either through photos or videos rather than just reading about it.
So with that in mind, if you have physical products, you must have photos of said product. Take a basic standard shot of it. If it’s worth it, take shots of the sides and back of it. Basically, take enough shots so that the prospective customer can get a good idea of what it is, what it does and how it can help them.
Then see if you can take photos of it in action. Again the goal here is to show the potential customer what the product can do and how it can help them.
Next comes probably the most important part: the text.
The meat of your content for the sales page is going to be the sales copy. Here you need to describe your product to the customer that’s going to help them make the decision to buy right now.
The trick, however, is to make sure you get to the point quickly and often. Don’t use flowery language. You’re not trying to stretch out a 2,000 word essay. You want to say your part, say it convincingly and get out of the way.
So you need to make sure every word counts. Think about how each word is helping you sell your product to the visitor, from literally saying what the product is to talking about it will help someone.
Finally, you need to make it super obvious where customers need to click in order to add the item to their cart and then to pay and check out.
Think about it. You’re on the product page. You’ve been convinced that you should buy this product. You’re ready to do the thing. And then you can’t figure out where to add it to your cart. That’s frustrating. And you’re likely to just go ahead and leave the site.
Don’t do that to your visitors. Make sure your add to cart button is clear and visible. Make sure it stands out from everything else. And make sure it works.
Giving visitors a clear here’s where you go next direction will help you increase your conversions.
A Good Payment Gateway
Also, you’re going to need to have payment options for your customers as well. After all, you do want to get paid for your products, right?
The good news is that this is pretty easy to set up. First, choose the payment gateway(s) you want to use on your website. Ideally, you might try to give your customers two options for which Gateway to use.
Personally, I use Stripe and Paypal. Most people are probably familiar with Paypal, so they trust it more and use it the most often. And then I like how Stripe submits payments right to my bank account without me needing to do anything.
Plus, giving users some options on how they want to pay is never really a bad thing.
Another set of good news is that most of the services you might use probably already have ways to support these payment gateways without you needing to do too much. I know WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads both have add ons that support Paypal and Stripe gateways.
So make sure you have those payment options for your customers
High Quality Website
Finally, and more importantly, you need a high-quality website that you can sell your products on.
Now, this does not mean that it has to be fancy. In fact, sometimes being fancy can be to your detriment. A flashy website that makes it hard for a user to navigate your website and purchase products is a bad website.
Instead, high-quality means in terms of how it works and that it works and has great content inside of it.
The tool you use doesn’t matter so much. Whether you’re using WordPress with WooCommerce, Shopify or some custom setup, those will be enough to get your store up and running.
You just need to make sure that you have great images that show off your products in the best way possible and to have great sales text that convinces someone to buy your products. Oh, and make sure that the checkout process for your website works. Obviously.
If you’ve got that, you’re well on your way to creating the perfect online store.
Get Started on Your Online Store Right Now
If you’re ready to start building your online store for your business and want expert help along the way, I would love to help you out. You can check out the Online Store Starter Kit where you can get a brand new online store built using the power of WordPress and WooCommerce and all the add ons you want for a price that will easily fit in your budget. It’s the best way to give your business an online store today!
Check Out the Online Store Starter Kit
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