Looking for how to create an E-commerce Website with WordPress? This blog is for beginners interested in how to make an E-commerce Website with WordPress and WooCommerce for free.
Three important items you need to know how to create an e-commerce website with WordPress:
- Domain name (eg. www.yourbusinessname.com)
- Web Hosting (eg: NameHero and SiteGround)
- WordPress (Content Management System for building the website)
Register Domain and Web Hosting
Domain Name
For you to build a website, the first thing that comes to mind is a domain name and web hosting. Here are some tips to use in selecting a domain name for your website:
- To build an e-commerce website, your domain name should match your company name. For example:
yourbusinessname.com - For a trusted online store, always make sure to use a generic domain name extension such as
.comif you are targeting international visitors. Use a “local” domain name extension such as.com.uk,.de,.fr,.ruetc., if your goal is country-targeted visitors.
If your preferred domain name is already taken, there are millions of different domain names registered, however, there are other possibilities that are still available to get another domain. If you don’t have a domain name yet, I will show you how to get a domain name for free for the first year when you purchase your web hosting.
Web Hosting
Web hosting refers to renting a web hosting server that hosts and stores website contents on a secure server that runs 24 hours. Without a web hosting service, your website will not be accessible to anyone online.
Reliable web hosting usually cost starts from $3 per month. This makes it easier to get your website online.
My recommended web hosting provider is NameHero for all your web hosting and domain purchases. I strongly recommend NameHero because they offer high-speed and fast web servers with a quick customer response time (less than 5 mins wait time). You don't need to worry about issues about your web hosting because they have 24/7 customer support. Getting a domain name and hosting from the same company saves you some time and money.
Why I Recommend NameHero?
- Blazing Fast speed
- 99.9% website uptime
- Instantly Scalable pay as you grow
- 1-Click WordPress install & staging
- Free LiteSpeed (20x faster)
- Free SSL Certificates
- Free SSD storage
- Free website migration
- 30-Days Money-back
NameHero hosting plans start from $3.58/mo with our discount link and offer all the essential features for setting up a website.
1. To get a your domain and web hosting, visit NameHero and click on “Get Started Now”.
2. Next, select a plan (for an e-commerce website you can start with Starter Cloud or Plus Cloud, you need to upgrade later when you have over 50,000 visits per month):
3. Search and choose your domain name. You can either transfer or add an existing domain name bought from a different domain provider with ease. Just follow the steps in registering your domain and hosting.
4. After registering your domain and web hosting, you may protect your domain name with an ID to prevent spammers from getting your email address. Every domain name has domain information about the domain registrar attached to your domain (such as full name, business name, email address, etc). To prevent your domain been showed to the general public, you select ID protection in your next step.
5. After purchasing your domain and web hosting, you will be redirected to your client area. You click on the Cloud Web Hosting to proceed to your hosting package.
6. Select your Starter or Plus Cloud, this will lead you to Cpanel where you can start WordPress installation.
7. You can now proceed to install WordPress by scrolling down to Softaculous Installer where you'll find the WordPress logo, click on it and fill in your website information.
Installing WordPress Website on Namehero
After purchasing a domain and web hosting, you are ready to create your e-commerce website with WordPress. WordPress is a widely and popular website design platform or content management system being used by over 35% of all the websites on the Internet.
8. Fill in the blank spaces then click on install to finish the WordPress installation. After installation, click the link (eg. yourwebsite.com/wp-admin) given to log in to your website dashboard with your username and password you registered in the WordPress installation process.
We are now ready to learn how to create an e-commerce website with WordPress. You can now start building your website with WordPress.
Test Your WordPress Website by visiting your domain
Type in your domain name into the web browser, with WordPress installed, you will have a very basic website like this:
Edit HTTPS Settings in your WordPress website
Change Permalink Settings
Customize Website Structure
2.0. Install a free theme for your website
You are going to use a free theme and page builder to create your website. You need to search for Astra at Appearance > Add theme area at the top right corner as shown below:
2.1. Create Pages
Create pages you want customers to navigate through such as a Home page, About page, Contact page, Shop page, etc. Also, create Posts if you want to include a blog post. Posts are also organized into categories and tags. You may need to put posts under categories.
To create your first page, head over to your Pages by clicking on Pages on the left menu, then click “Add New”. You will need to add a title for your page before you start writing content in the page editor.
2.2. Install Elementor Plugin
To edit pages, you will need to download Elementor page builder. Elementor is one of the top WordPress page builders in the world with over 5 million active installs creating beautiful sites with drag and drop interface. Visit Elementor.com to download the zip file.
So if you want to use Elementor, you may need to select one of these plans that suits your desires. The Elementor Pro contains very useful features that can help you build e-commerce websites faster with just a click, however, it is optional. So you may select the FREE plan which will get you everything to start your e-commerce website.
Click on “Yes, I sure do” to get you to download the plugin.
Then, download Elementor plugin by clicking on the “…download it here” at the bottom text link.
After downloading the zip file, navigate to your plugin page and upload the zip file from your download location by selecting the browse location in the “Add New” plugin page.
Then activate Elementor plugin.
2.3. Install Additional Plugins
- Ocean Extra
- Ocean Product Sharing
- Ocean Social Sharing
- Elements Kit Lite
- Premium Addons for Elementor
- Ocean Sticky Header
- Contact Form 7
- WooCommerce
- WooCommerce Variation Swatches
- TI WooCommerce Wishlist
- Essential Addons for Elementor
2.4. Install WooCommerce Plugin
Then install and activate WooCommerce plugin from the WordPress plugin page. WooCommerce is a free open-source tool that helps you build an e-commerce store in WordPress. Search for WooCommerce, then activate and follow the procedure to fill your store details.
It will take you through the initial setup required to get your store going.
2.5. Set Up Payment Methods
By default, PayPal is set to accept WooCommerce payments. You don’t need to do much in order to enable this payment system either. You likely already took care of it during the initial WooCommerce setup.
You can choose a different payment or use alternative payment gateways at the same time. One of the reasons for this might be that some of your customers will prefer specific payment methods over others. One most popular additional payment methods for WooCommerce is Stripe. You may use FlutterWave or Paystack if you are located in Africa. These are particularly good choices if you want to accept credit cards (which you surely do). You may need to search in the WordPress plugin page if your country payment gateway can be found in or check these payments gateway website for more information.
2.6. Add Products
2.7. Edit Pages with Elementor Plugin
To edit pages with Elementor, go to Pages and click on the Home page, then click “Edit with Elementor” on the top start editing.
You can now design your website pages using Elementor Page builder as you want.
Resources:
- Free DEMO images & CSS: Files.zip
- Click here to learn how to create a logo for free
- Get a premium logo design from Fiverr.com
Summary
Starting an online store is not that difficult. You just need to launch your store quickly by planning out your steps, and take advantage of modern tools like WordPress and WooCommerce.
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