Replace (not provided) with ALL of your organic keywords inside of Adobe & Google Analytics. Analyze performance by 400+ dimensions and metrics.
TRY FOR FREE→ WordPress is the most flexible platform for online sales available today.
The open-source nature of WordPress ensures that it is a reliable platform that is not going to disappear one day or go out of business.
Continue reading to learn how to create a WordPress ecommerce website and establish a successful online sales presence. What Are Ecommerce Platforms?
An ecommerce platform is the content management system used to build and manage an online store.
There are generally two kinds of ecommerce platforms: Proprietary SaaS (Software as a Service) Ecommerce Platforms.
Open-source Ecommerce Platforms (WordPress).
A proprietary SaaS platform handles all of the technology, hosting, and to varying levels, the SEO of the ecommerce store.
The benefit of a proprietary ecommerce platform is not having to think about the technology, which frees the merchant to focus on marketing and sales.
The downside of closed platforms is less control over the SEO and website. A merchant may be unable to add unavailable features on the closed platform.
The SEO capabilities of closed platforms vary, with some offering competent search performance options while others less so.
Rob Snell of GunDogSupply.com said WordPress wasn’t an option in 1997 when he and his brother opened their online store.
He shared that his experience with Yahoo! Stores (Turbify) has been exceedingly positive. Rob noted that paying extra not to have to deal with technology is money well spent for him.
He shared his experience with a SaaS platform: “When you use a platform built for ecommerce, you get peace of mind, but that comes with a price. I really don’t mind paying enterprise-level hosting rates to get that level of security, support, and uptime. I sleep pretty well knowing that the engineers at Turbify (formerly Yahoo! Small Business) are on the job. At the end of the day, I’m a retailer, not a software engineer.” What Is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is an open-source plugin that adds ecommerce functionality to WordPress. It is developed by Automattic, the commercial side of WordPress.
There are two versions of WooCommerce, a free and a paid version.
The free WooCommerce plugin enables everything a small business needs to create a successful ecommerce store.
Payment gateways, configurable shipping options, automatic sales tax calculations, and access to hundreds of free and paid extensions vetted by WooCommerce, are available on the WooCommerce website .
The paid Professional version provides more advanced features that accommodate the complex needs of a larger online business.The modular nature of WooCommerce means that whatever function is needed can be seamlessly added to the WooCommerce store.While it’s possible to create an ecommerce site without WooCommerce, it’s generally easier to create a store with WooCommerce than without it. Katie Keith of Barn2 Plugins explains the benefits of using WooCommerce to create a WordPress ecommerce store: “WooCommerce is the best path forward because of the size of the community, the number of extensions, and the considerable amount of resources. WooCommerce is the easiest option because you can take advantage of the wide range of compatible themes and plugins, allowing most store owners to create an ecommerce store to exact requirements without needing to write any custom code. If anything custom is needed, then it’s easy to find a developer to do it. WooCommerce is easy to use, and many learning resources and tutorials are available to help you with it. If you ever want to know how to do anything in WooCommerce, just Google it. You’ll almost certainly find a free tutorial or video to help you!” Why Choose WooCommerce? The primary benefits of WooCommerce are the nearly limitless possibilities of what can be created with WordPress, lower costs, and a huge community of developers to support the platform.The ability to launch an ecommerce site with WordPress depends on the skill and knowledge of the person creating the website, which is why (depending on the scope of the online store) it may be helpful to engage a WordPress developer.But it’s not always necessary to engage a developer because some web hosts offer a custom point-and-click WordPress feature that makes creating a store as easy as answering questions.Once the store is up and running, the daily maintenance of the CMS (content management software) itself is relatively trivial.At the same time, the costs of operating the site can be remarkably low compared to a proprietary ecommerce platform. Plan For Site Speed Optimization High Core Web Vitals speeds are within reach of […]