On the other hand, we find that Shopify is also one of the distinguished platforms in the field of creating e-commerce stores, and you may not be able to determine the right platform for your business, and for that, in this section of the article we will learn about a set of differences between WooCommerce and Shopify, namely:
Customization Options
As for the customization options, ValueCommerce wins easily, as it is originally an open-source system offering many customization options that Shopify lacks. It is possible to choose the template that suits you, and the speed and size of the appropriate hosting.
Ease of use
As for the usability differences between WooCommerce and Shopify, WooCommerce is an open source system and you can get the customization options you want, but it needs design experience and sometimes adding some code to get the design you want. It also needs to handle hosts and servers and manage domain names.
As for Shopify, it is a fully hosted system, which means that you do not need to install it to add, backup, secure the store manually, or even monitor the performance of the hosting.
Low costs
When we talk about creating an online store, the penetration into the field of e-commerce costs plays a big role, especially as it affects the price of products later. In this aspect, we find that WooCommerce comes completely free, but you will need to install some paid add-ons or templates and at the same time buy hosting and a domain name for your online store, which may not exceed $20 per month.
As for Subify, it is a fully paid system, where you will pay a monthly subscription starting from $29 per month, and this is for the lowest possible package. It is possible to purchase other packages at prices starting from $79 and $299 to get more features.
What are the requirements for setting up a WooCommerce store?
To be able to create a WooCommerce online store, you will need to fulfill some important requirements, which you need to purchase and pay some costs. Therefore, you need to prepare your payment method and follow the following lines:
1- Hosting
Hosting represents the place or storage space in which site data from content, design, plugins, templates, product and user information, and other aspects are kept.
Bluehost hosting is one of the best options you can buy for hosting your store, and its price starts from $2 a month for shared hosting.
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2- Domain
The other thing that must be provided is the domain name, which stands for the address of the site on the Internet and its form is as follows: webwiner.com. And if you buy hosting from
Bluehost, you will get a free domain. But if you are considering a company or another option, you can easily buy a domain name from
Godaddy.
3- SSL Certificate
This certificate is necessary, especially in the field of e-commerce, as it works to maintain the security and confidentiality of users' data and information when they use the site or add their payment information or email. Most of the time, you get it for free.
How to create an online store WooCommerce
Do you want to create a WooCommerce store? In this part of the article, we will learn about a set of steps that allow you to start your online store, and it is worth noting that it may take more than two hours to be able to see your store, follow the following steps:
1- Select your store area
Before setting out to create your own online store, it is important to outline a set of important aspects affecting the success of your store. So what would you sell and to whom would you sell it? It is important to identify all of these aspects to help the store's marketing and future success. Before proceeding with that, you should ask the following questions:
- What is your goal in creating the store?
- What products do you want to sell?
- Do you know the direction of the market?
- Who is your target audience?
- What is your budget?
- Who is your competitor?
- What sets you apart?
- Decide which products to sell
- The WooCommerce store does not specify the type of products that you will sell, through which you can sell various products from physical products, to digital products, services, and subscriptions. But before proceeding with that, make sure that you do not choose the wrong products or that are not in demand by the target audience.
In this case, you can use the Google Trends tool to see which products people are searching for the most or use a
keywordtool that allows you to see what products they are searching for on Amazon, eBay, Play Store ة Instagram and Twitter.
After that, you can write down the products that are arranged in your business and are not confused and that can be marketed, so that you will have two options either to follow the trends and products that are popular or in high demand or products that interest your target audience only. But don't try to imitate other online stores and always ensure you have a competitive advantage over them.
🟢 What is your target audience?
Let's say you sell smartphones and to increase your sales, you decide to launch some paid ads, how will you be able to target the target audience without getting to know them? also about creating content on the blog. What are the problems that you will solve or areas that you will talk about so that the content is compatible with the interests of the target audience?
Knowing the target audience is one of the important aspects that must be done before creating an online store, and without doing this, you are sure that your project will fail. Here, you should start identifying your ideal customer and collecting demographic information, interests, challenges, and problems facing your target audience.
⭕ Competitor Analysis
Also, one of the important steps is to study the current competitors of your business that offer the same products and target the same audience as you. Without beating them, you will not be able to survive in the market or sell your products. You should start by examining competitors' stores, the products they sell, and their marketing strategies.
Buy a domain name
The second step in the journey of creating a Woocommerce store is to purchase the store's domain, which stands for the store's address on the web. As we mentioned earlier, it can be easily purchased from Godaddy for an amount not exceeding $10. A good domain name can help you improve your site's ranking in search results and get more traffic and sales. So how do you choose the right domain name for your store?
🟢 Make sure your domain name ends in .com
There are more than 250 domain name extensions that can be compared, such as. org and . co and . us and . net, but com is the most popular and the best as users always expect the domain name to end with it.
⭕ Compatible with the brand
The domain name is an important part of the brand identity, so it is important to match the brand with the words that symbolize your business.
🟢 Make the domain name as short as possible
Long domain names do not get much interest in the target audience, they even ignore saving them to return back to the store, and when you select a long domain name you are widening the gap between the audience and your store. Finally, it is important that the domain name is short and easy to remember and the ideal length of a domain name is 6-14 characters.
⭕ Within the keywords in the domain name
It is also possible to take advantage of the domain name to include some keywords, which later improve the site's ranking on search engines from these words.
2- Buy hosting
Many hosts offer you a free domain name such as Bluehost hosting, and hosting is one of the important components and elements for every online store, as it saves site data from designs, content, and other aspects. Influencing site speed and user experience, one of the most popular hosting companies that can be resorted to is WP Engine, Kinsta, Hostgator, DreamHost, and InMotion, but the best of them is Bluehost.
🟢 Tips for buying the right hosting
When buying hosting to create a WooCommerce store, you will find a range of options and companies as we mentioned earlier, and in this case, it will be important to provide you with a set of tips that will help you choose the right hosting:
⏪ Right price
The prices of the hosting service vary between companies, and in this case, you should search well to choose the appropriate hosting in terms of price. By purchasing the hosting, you will be committed to paying its subscription for a period of up to 5 years, depending on the age of the online store.
⏪ Readiness rate
The uptime rate indicates how stable the hosting service is and does not stop working, as many hosting companies claim that they provide an uptime rate of 99.9%, which means the possibility of the site stopping working is 0.1%.
⏪ Storage Space
Websites, especially online stores, need a lot of storage space because they contain a lot of images, product descriptions, and registered users. Here, it is important to know the storage space of the store at each stage of its work, and then search for the hosting that offers you this storage capacity. Taking into account the additional features of backup and insurance.
⏪ Visit Rate
Some hosting companies set a certain number of visits to the store, which is known as the bandwidth rate. If the WooCommerce store visits more than the limit, the site will stop working. It is also important to consider the availability of technical support and available payment options.
Here's how to buy Bluehost hosting
You have to go to the
Bluehost website and choose the hosting you want to buy, and here we will choose WordPress hosting, and it is worth noting that a dedicated WooCommerce is hosting that you can choose.
Select the package you want which varies on the features offered:
As we mentioned later, you will be able to get a free domain name for a whole year and an SSL certificate to do some security on the site and ensure that users' data is encrypted. All you have to do is enter the domain name you want and click on the next option below.
Enter your personal information specifying the services you want to add to the package of protection and SEO tools and agree to the terms of use. Then you will have purchased the hosting and in the next step, you will have to install WordPress on this hosting.
3- Install WordPress on your hosting
After purchasing the
hosting, you will later need to install WordPress on your hosting, and it is worth noting that this process does not require more than 10 minutes, you may need to enter the hosting control panel and then proceed with the following steps:
From within the cPanel, scroll down to the Softaculous Apps Installer section and then you will find the WordPress option, just click on it.
You will be taken to this window, click on the Install Now option.
Next, you will be able to control from a set of options for the protocol, domain, and file you want to install WordPress on. Then select Choose the WordPress version.
In the next window, you can add the username and password for the site's control panel next.
There are a bunch of templates below, just select the template and click install. It is worth noting that it is possible to change this template at a later time.
With these steps, you have installed WordPress on your hosting.
To access your site's control panel, go to the following link:
http://www.mysite.com/wp-admin
and replace .mysite.com with your site's domain.
4- Install WooCommerce on WordPress
After installing WordPress on your hosting, you will need to install WooCommerce on WordPress, to be able to start your online store, and here are the steps you need to do it:
Head to your WordPress dashboard.
Click on the Add-ons option > Add new > in the search field at the top, enter the word WooCommerce, and then the extension will appear to you. You just have to click on install now and then activate.
5- Set up a woocommerce store
After installing the WooCommerce plugin on WordPress, you will have to complete the plugin's quick setup, which allows you to get the right online store and set up all aspects of the store.
You can complete or skip these settings by clicking the Skip store details setting below. But it is always a good idea to complete the setup process because it gives you the combination of flexibility and makes your online store ready to sell directly.
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Here is a quick look at the steps you need to take:
- Enter your full (original) store address [street address]
- Fill in the address line 2 [apartment, suite, or any other address]
- Enter your city and zip code.
- Enter the currency of the store.
- Choose the products you will sell in the store.
- Decide what type of products you want to sell (physical, digital, or both) and how many.
- Check the checkbox if you want to sell products/services in person.
- Choose an initial template for your store.
6- Choose a WooCommerce template
In the next step, you will have to choose the WooCommerce site, and it is worth noting that WooCommerce offers you a huge library of free and paid templates. And you have to choose between free and paid templates. In order to choose the appropriate template, you must bear in mind the following tips:
- The mold must be present of technical problems.
- The template is compatible with mobile phones and search engines.
- The template is compatible with the latest features and functionality of WorkCommerce.
- Fast and good user experience.
🟢 Best WooCommerce Templates
The Astra theme from WooCommerce's premium templates allows you to fully customize your store and get the quick store you need. It comes in light font sizes and good coding. With more than 150 custom templates that you can use on your site. With customization support from Gutenberg and Elementor.
In addition to the ease of user experience, the template offers you a set of features, with continuous updates to add more features and close security holes. It also allows you to customize product pages, shopping carts, and other aspects.
Another premium WooCommerce template that combines many features in one template, from a drag-and-drop site customization tool and formatting the site with the format, colors or fonts you want. It also comes powered by several ready-made pages for both products, thank you pages, and a product page.
It has more than thirty million downloads, just because it is one of the most popular templates to use and customize with just one click. It fully integrates with WooCommerce and gives you the opportunity to add the layouts, colors, and fonts you want, with compatibility with different phone screens and search engines. It is also compatible with drag-and-drop page builder plugins with a range of ready-made and optimized plugins from your store.
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7- Choose the appropriate add-ons and install them on the store
Every WooCommerce store needs to install some important plugins so that it can add more functions and features to your online store. For example marketing, inventory management, store optimization in search engines, security and speed up, additions of in-store promotion functions such as consideration, discounts, and other aspects. These add-ons may be free or paid in which case it should be a reasonable budget.
8- Add products to the store
Before proceeding with this step, you must have photographed your products and written the description, and then you have to add the products one by one within the store. It is worth noting that it is possible to add an unlimited number of products to the store. And the types of products that can be added to the store:
- simple products.
- default products.
- bundled products.
- Downloadable products.
It is also possible to add different types of products that can be sold through auctions, subscriptions, and reservations.
Other ways to earn from websites
There are many areas other than WooCommerce to profit from your website, so we strongly advise you to create a website correctly that contains many technologies and features that facilitate you to create and develop your site to suit your field or the niche you are working on.
Conclusion
With these steps, you have been able to create a WooCommerce store, and you will need to select the appropriate payment gateway for the store and the users' preference, also with the addition of different shipping options to deliver products to users, while marketing the online store through well-known digital marketing strategies. And if you need a company to create a WooCommerce store, we at Winner Web offer you an integrated service to create the online store you prefer.
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