Building your own online store is relatively easy, and the process takes from 10 to 45 days, depending on the complexity of the web design and the range of products and services that will go into the shop. So what exactly do you need to "open" an online store?
Find the right domain
Finding the right domain is one of the more important steps in building an online store. The domain you want may already be taken, so you will have to find another. You can choose a domain in two ways: it can contain keywords, or it can consist of the name of your company.
The first way is good because a keyword in the domain greatly improves search results. For example, if you sell mobile phones, your domain would be mobilephones.com. The drawback of choosing a domain this way is that the name of your company does not appear anywhere in it, and later it is hard to brand your company.
The second way is the exact opposite of the first. Branding the company on the website is easy, but the search engine optimization has to be much better than with a keyword domain.
*Perhaps the best way to create a domain would be a combination of the two, but you have to take care that the domain does not get too long.
Building the online store and renting hosting
The most interesting step in the process of building an online store. It is also the step you expect the most from for the money you invest in the shop.
In the rest of this article I will present everything a good online shop should contain. ISS ONLINE SHOP, a product of the Izrada Sajtova Srbija agency, contains all the items that will let you do business on the internet without major problems.
The customer side of the online shop should contain (what the user sees):
- A unique, clear design in keeping with the products and services offered in the store
- Buying a product in 2 clicks at most
- Finding a product in two clicks at most
- Clear product categories
- Special offers, Newest, Best sellers and so on...
- A clear overview and description of the product itself, with an image gallery
- Product comments
- Product ratings
- Sorting products by price, name, color and so on (depending on the product)
- Newsletter sign-up
- Integration with social networks (Facebook, Google+, Twitter...)
- A contact form for every product
- Automatic generation of an invoice for the purchase
- User registration
- User account management
- An online shopping cart through which the user buys
- + custom programming to the client's requirements
The administrator side of the online shop (the system through which you control the website - the CMS)
- A secure, simple and powerful content management system
- Unlimited products
- Unlimited categories and subcategories
- Unlimited pages
- Unlimited news items
- Banner system
- A system for putting special offers on the website
- Stock list
- Control of the accounts of all users of the website
- An overview of income and expenditure statistics on the website
- An overview of visit statistics on the website
- Automatic generation of invoices to suppliers or users
- Automatic sending of newsletter e-mails to several thousand addresses (your e-mail list)
- + custom programming to the client's requirements
As for renting hosting (your space on the internet), you need a slightly better package than the standard one that hosting providers in Serbia usually offer. If you choose the Izrada Sajtova Srbija agency, the price of the online store includes domain registration and hosting.
Entering products or services into the online store
Products or services can be entered into ISS ONLINE SHOP or any other online store in two ways:
- Manual entry is a process in which you enter products or services one by one. It takes longer, but from experience I know that it is better to enter content this way.
- Automatic entry is a process in which the database on your site is filled automatically from a list of your products or services in files such as .XML or .CSV. This is far faster than the first way, but if the list is not built with exactly the right structure, errors can occur. After the import you have to go through every product once more and check that the data was entered correctly, and also add product images that suit the design of the website.
Promoting the online shop
Your online store is finally finished and ready to bring you revenue. You have reached the moment when you need to attract a large audience to look at your products and services.
You can advertise and promote your web shop in two ways:
- Free advertising - by sharing content from your online shop. Likes and shares of your products and services on social networks will bring a large number of potential buyers to your website
- Paid advertising - there are many ways and services you can pay for to promote your website. The most widespread is Pay Per Click advertising, where you pay search engines or particular services to place your website among the first search results, and they charge you only when someone clicks on your ad. I will explain this kind of advertising in more detail in one of the next articles
Online profit
That is all - your online store is ready for the market. As you can see, from the technical side it is not hard to build an online store. Once it is built, what is expected of you is patience and persistence in bringing the products you believe in to the market the way you want. Listen to what your customers criticize, too, and act on their wishes. Try to think like a customer.
As I said, it takes patience, persistence and a lot of promotion, because making money on the internet is not as simple as it seems, but it is far from impossible. Be prepared for the fact that you will not earn enormous sums right away, but with steady work and persistence your investment will come back to you many times over.
