What does it take to get your e-commerce website off the ground and running? Besides an excellent product and great promotional skills, that is? Let’s take a look at that backbone of an online store and what it takes to hit the ground running on the web…
Step One: The Domain & Hosting.
You’re going to obviously need a domain name and a web hosting company in order to put your product in front of the world on the web. You probably already know this, but it’s worth mentioning just in case. These are fundamentals to any website—e-commerce or otherwise.
Step Two: The Website Itself.
There’s more to any good e-commerce store than just the products it sells alone. Those are important, of course, but that’s the next step. First things first, you’ll need an excellent website design and supporting pages—pages that tell your visitors about you, what makes you different (your USP), how to contact you, and so on. There is a lot that goes into a good web design, and again, this is a very vital part of every website—e-commerce or not.
Step Three: The E-Commerce Software.
This is where the magic happens. Okay, sorry for the cliché, but your e-commerce software that’s built into your website is where you’ll upload your products—photos, descriptions, prices and all. Most e-commerce solutions also serve as a CMS (content management system) for the products you sell. In other words, they allow you to log in and add new products, edit your products, or make other changes or deletions, all online through web. The e-commerce system is also commonly referred to as an “online shopping cart,” as it’s the part that facilitates the shopping cart capabilities as well.
Step Four: A Payment System.
Collecting payments securely is probably the most important part of an e-commerce website. Your payment system integrates with the e-commerce software and enables you to accept online payments, credit cards, etc. There are different options here—some rely on PayPal to power the payments, while others are full-fledged payment gateways that connect your e-com software directly to your merchant bank account. Spend some time here learning the ropes and how to choose the best option to for your needs. It’s good to know that most reputable e-commerce systems contain built-in support for most reputable payment systems.
Step Five: A Way To Market Online.
Once you’ve built your online e-commerce website, set up the shopping cart and payment systems, and added all of your products to the site, it’s time to begin brining in the visitors. It’s not always the most encouraging news, but it is important to understand that there really is no “build it and they will come” guarantee for the web. To get visitors to your site, you’re going to have to promote the site tirelessly—using lots of unique quality content, organic SEO, PPC, and other traffic generation methods. There is a good deal of work involved, but when it all comes together, the results are worth it!
Until Next Time.
George Chaney
President/CEO
SEO King, Inc.
