Everybody, from young entrepreneurs selling products online to established offline businesses, wants to build a great and popular eCommerce website. However, only a few of them know how to do that fast and easy.
In this article, we’ll show you the easiest steps you should take to build a working eCommerce website from scratch. Enjoy!
Table of Contents
Planning Your eCommerce Website
Building a business, especially one in eCommerce, where the competition is at its highest possible level, takes a lot of planning.
Before learning the technicalities of creating an eCommerce store, any young entrepreneur needs to establish a clear roadmap that aligns with his goals.
Here are two easy steps to follow.
Define Your Business Goals
Setting up a goal is the easiest way to get a business off the ground. So, before even buying a Shopify subscription, think about what you want to do with the store.
What are you looking for when opening an online store? Do you already sell products offline and want to reach a broader audience? Or is it a dropshipping store where the products aren’t manufactured by you?
Imagine you’re a small business selling hand-made jewelry. In this case, one of your main goals would be to reach a broader audience, potentially even overseas.
Identifying this simple goal will help you target the marketing campaign correctly, include features like international shipping and multi-currency support, and much more.
Identifying your target audience is also crucial. Who are your potential customers? What are their preferences, age groups, and purchasing habits? If your target audience consists of young adults interested in eco-friendly products, your website design and product offerings should reflect this focus.
Identify and Choose a Profitable Niche
The eCommerce business is one of the most crowded industries in the world, especially after Shopify’s popularization.
That’s why choosing a super distinct niche will help you thrive. Think of it this way: you don’t need to sell your products to 100% of the population. Even 0.1% of the world’s population equals 800 million potential customers. That’s more than enough!
Now, how do you find your niche? You should start by doing some market research and find potential gaps in the market. Look for places where the demand is fairly high, but the supply is limited.
For instance, if you notice a growing trend in sustainable fashion but limited options for affordable eco-friendly clothing, this could be a viable niche for the next couple of years.
Pro Tip: Find a sustainable niche that would bring you cash for at least five years.
Once you’ve identified the niche, look at what the competitors are doing. The most important things to look at are the pricing, product offerings, and customer service. Now, you should only focus on improving one of these aspects – that would be your selling card.
Selecting the Right eCommerce Platform
The foundation of your online store is the eCommerce platform you choose.
That’s why choosing the right one is one of the most critical decisions you can make. Let’s look at some of the most popular platforms out there.
Overview of Popular eCommerce Platforms
Several eCommerce platforms are available, each with its unique features and benefits. Some of the most popular ones include:
- Shopify: The ideal choice for a beginner. Shopify offers a wide app store and integrates with numerous third-party services. On top of that, Shopify is easy to use and doesn’t cost too much.
- BigCommerce: This platform is great for businesses looking for scalability. It offers advanced SEO features and a range of built-in tools to help grow your business.
- WooCommerce: A WordPress plugin, WooCommerce is perfect for those familiar with WordPress. It’s highly customizable and offers a wide range of plugins and themes. Blocksy, for example, is perfect for those who search for a lightning-fast and feature-rich theme for WooCommerce.
- Wix: If you’re not really into planning or creating a unique design, Wix is the best choice for you. With its drag-and-drop builder, Wix will give you a website in a matter of hours, if not less. However, this platform is suitable only for people with small stores and a narrow range of products.
Key Features to Consider
When selecting an eCommerce platform, consider features like scalability, customization options, and payment gateways. Scalability is crucial if you plan to grow your business. Ensure the platform can handle an increasing number of products and traffic.
Customization options are equally important. You should be able to tailor the look and feel of your site to match your brand identity. Look for platforms that offer customizable templates and allow you to make changes to the site’s design and functionality.
Payment gateways are another vital feature. Choose a platform that supports multiple payment options, such as credit cards, PayPal, and other digital wallets. This will provide a seamless checkout experience for your customers.
Designing Your eCommerce Website
The design of your eCommerce website plays a significant role in attracting and retaining customers. A well-designed site not only looks professional but also offers a user-friendly experience.
Choose a Memorable Domain Name
The domain name is the online address of your business. If you already have a company and a brand name, choosing the domain is very simple – just take the company’s name as your domain name.
For example, if you have a company named “EcoGoods,” the best thing you can do is buy the domain “EcoGoods.com.”
If you don’t have a brand name, find one and buy that domain immediately, even if you don’t plan on opening the site soon. Sometimes, people can simply purchase the domain name of a popular brand from the host and then re-sell it ten times more expensive.
Additionally, choose the right domain extension. While “.com” is the most popular and widely recognized, other extensions like “.net” or “.store” can also be effective, depending on your business type.
Plan an Engaging Website Design and Layout
There’s a reason why high-end brands like Nike and Google spend millions of dollars a year on web design.
Websites that have an unorganized layout and aren’t that intuitive will simply scare away the customer before he even places an order. On the other hand, a clean and organized layout that guides users through your site will possibly increase sales and bring in better reviews.
Another important factor is mobile responsiveness. More than 60% of all the internet traffic goes through mobile phones, so designing a website that doesn’t work on smartphones is simply stupid. Test your site on various devices to ensure a seamless experience for all users.
Building and Launching Your eCommerce Website
Here comes the most difficult part – building and launching the website. Here are the things you should do to make the website run smoothly:
Set Up and Organize Products
The products are the cornerstone of your eCommerce website. When adding the products, don’t forget to influence high-quality images, SEO-optimized descriptions and more relevant information depending on your niche.
For example, if you sell beauty products, you can include the ingredients, some skin type recommendations, and more.
After you add the products, organize them into categories to improve user experience. Imagine using Amazon without categories – it will take ages to find something useful!
Configure Payment and Shipping Options
The more payment configurations your website has, the better it is. Start by choosing the most popular and trusted options, such as credit cards and PayPal. After you have those, you can add sophisticated payment gateways like crypto, Stripe, and more.
Shipping is also an important part of an online business. As a start, you can add two shipping options: standard and express. If you want to sell abroad, also add an international shipping option.
Pro Tip: Offering free shipping for orders over a certain amount can be a compelling incentive to increase sales.
Ensure Security and Compliance
Security is one of the most crucial aspects of building an online business. Protecting your customers’ personal and financial information is a must, and you should take this matter seriously.
Use SSL certificates to encrypt data and protect against cyber threats. Before launching the website, make sure you adhere to all the legal requirements in your area. In Europe, for example, there’s the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR.)
Returns and refunds are also important to your website’s security. Clearly outline these policies and make them easily accessible on your website. You should also set up an email address and a phone number for customer support.
Test and Prepare for Launch
The easiest way to launch your website is to have your friends or family place some test orders and see if there’s something missing. Look for broken links, low-quality photos, and absent descriptions.
Once you’re confident that your website is ready, it’s time to launch. Announce the launch through your social media channels, email list, and other marketing avenues. Consider running promotions or offering discounts to attract your first customers.
Marketing Your eCommerce Website
Marketing is crucial when it comes to any type of eCommerce website. Here are some things you can do to drive more sales and increase your profits.
Boost Visibility with SEO
SEO is crucial for getting your website to rank higher in search engine results. Optimize your website content with relevant keywords that potential customers might use to find your products.
Additionally, focus on on-page SEO factors like meta descriptions, title tags, and URL structure. These elements will determine if you will rank #1 or #14 on Google.
Engage Customers on Social Media
Social media marketing is probably the most powerful tool for a beginner. Getting popular on TikTok, Facebook, or Instagram doesn’t take millions of dollars in marketing budgets—you should simply be creative and consistent.
Try collaborating with niche influencers by sending them some products to review.
For example, if you’re selling beauty products, hundreds of young influencers with decent followings will take free products as payment for a short shoutout.
Grow Your List with Email Marketing
Email marketing is a very effective and cheap way to communicate with your customers.
You can use different tools to make emails more personalized: add the recipients’ names and segment your list based on preferences.
For example, if a customer frequently buys athletic wear, send them targeted emails about new arrivals in that category.
To build an email list in the first place, simply offer different discounts or free shipping to subscribers.
Drive Targeted Traffic with Paid Advertising
If you have the budget for paid advertising, it is the easiest form of marketing. You can use Facebook Ads or Google Ads to target your audience and create an engaging post that will lead them to your store.
Paid advertising is also a great way to make your website take-off. If you have zero sales and zero followers on social media, one month of Facebook Ads can increase these numbers significantly.
Pro Tip: Instead of spending a lot of money on volume, spend a lot of time researching the audience and crafting the most engaging post you can.
Optimizing for SEO
Being the #1 ranked eCommerce website for a certain keyword will bring more money than all the advertising you can think of. That’s why optimizing for SEO is crucial. Here’s how you can do it:
Focus on On-Page SEO
The first thing you should do with on-page SEO is to identify the terms and phrases customers are using to search for products you sell.
Once you’ve got a list of these keywords and key phrases, it’s time to incorporate them into all your texts. We’re talking about meta descriptions, meta tags, product descriptions, titles, and more. But keep in mind that you should use these terms naturally. Otherwise, Google will flag these pages as spam.
Product page optimization is another critical aspect of on-page SEO. Ensure each product page includes unique content, such as detailed descriptions and customer reviews. Use alt tags for images, which provide a text description for search engines and help improve your site’s accessibility.
Blocky eCommerce starter sites are optizimed for SEO as well.
Build Credibility with Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO involves activities outside your website that can improve your search engine rankings. Building backlinks is a key strategy in off-page SEO.
Backlinks are links from other websites to your site, and they signal to search engines that your content is valuable and authoritative.
Share your products and blog posts on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to reach a broader audience and encourage engagement.
Analyzing and Improving Performance
Analyzing the performance of your business is essential if you want to keep it alive. Here are two easy ways of doing that:
Track Key Metrics with Analytics
First of all, analyze your website’s performance. Google Analytics is probably the best and most accessible tool to track and measure hundreds of metrics related to your domain. Here, we talk about traffic, bounce rate, conversation rate, and average order value.
For example, if you notice that a page has a high bounce rate, it means that the content or the layout of that exact page should be changed to keep the customer engaged for a longer period of time.
Google Analytics can also help you build a better marketing campaign while optimizing the costs per customer.
There are two key metrics you should look at from this perspective: customer acquisition cost (CAC) and customer lifetime value (CLTV.) CAC measures how much it costs you to acquire a new customer, and CLTV estimates the total revenue a customer might generate over their lifetime.
Continuously Improve with A/B Testing
Staying in one place means death. If you want your eCommerce website to thrive ten years from now, you should start improving NOW, not in 10 years. One of the most effective ways to do so is through A/B testing. This process involves trying different versions of a webpage to see which performs better.
Also, don’t forget about the good old customer feedback. Encourage customers to leave reviews about their shopping experience, customer service, and other aspects of your website. Use this feedback to identify areas for improvement, and don’t hesitate to take action.
Wrap-Up and Next Steps on Creating an eCommerce Website
Building a successful eCommerce website is not easy, but it is fairly simple. You just have to follow the steps we gave you, and with a bit of luck, you will create a great eCommerce website on your own.
