{"id":224623,"date":"2020-04-10T08:51:58","date_gmt":"2020-04-10T03:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qcsglobal.com\/?p=224623"},"modified":"2020-04-18T17:10:18","modified_gmt":"2020-04-18T11:40:18","slug":"how-to-build-an-ecommerce-website-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qcsglobal.com\/blogs\/how-to-build-an-ecommerce-website-fast\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Build an Ecommerce Website Fast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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We\u2019re living in uncertain, life-altering times. As social distancing measures become more restrictive in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19)<\/a>, brick-and-mortar retailers are suffering from reduced demand or forced to close entirely. Simultaneously, consumers are relying more and more on ecommerce to purchase the goods they need to survive.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Via <\/span><\/em>Inc<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

You may be a small business owner that relied on foot traffic and store sales only, and now you’ve got to figure out how to get your products into customers’ hands when they can’t come into your physical storefront. That means you need a functional ecommerce site, and fast! <\/span><\/p>\n

Given the circumstances, now is a great time to talk about the process of building an ecommerce website.<\/span> First, we\u2019ll talk about building an ecommerce website from scratch. Then, for those of you who already have a website, we\u2019ll share some tips for adding basic ecommerce functionality to your existing site.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s begin, so you can start selling again!<\/span><\/p>\n

Building an ecommerce website from scratch<\/span><\/h2>\n

Right off the bat, I\u2019m going to make two assumptions: (1) You know what you want to sell and (2) You know what you want your ecommerce business to be called. If that\u2019s not the case, check out our guide to defining and targeting a niche<\/a> and Shopify\u2019s guide to naming your online store<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step #1: Make sure your domain is available <\/span><\/h3>\n

Now, what you need to do is verify that your desired domain name is available. With a tool like Instant Domain Search<\/a>, this step takes literally seconds. If the domain you want is available, that\u2019s great! If not, browse the recommendations and select whichever one fits best. Of course, your selection shouldn\u2019t be too <\/em>similar to an existing domain, as this would likely lead to lost traffic (and revenue) down the line.<\/span><\/p>\n

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If you\u2019re looking to sell cat toys, this one\u2019s all yours.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Important note: <\/span><\/strong>When you settle on an available domain, hold off on buying it! If you plan to build your ecommerce website with a solution like Shopify, Squarespace, or WordPress, you\u2019ll be able to buy your domain through the platform. Trust me\u2014life is easier this way.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why is checking domain availability the very first step? Because it will save you an enormous amount of time and frustration. Imagine if you began naming your products, drafting your web copy, and building your store only to realize <\/em>that you\u2019ve been optimizing for a name that isn\u2019t available for purchase. Hard pass.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step #2: Check out the search volume for products you want to sell<\/span><\/h3>\n

You should invest neither money nor time until you\u2019re confident that there\u2019s enough demand for your products in order for your ecommerce business to be profitable. I don\u2019t care how good your products are or how persuasive your marketing is\u2014if very few people are going online and looking for whatever it is you want to sell, you\u2019re unlikely to find success. That\u2019s why the second step to building an ecommerce website is using WordStream\u2019s Free Keyword Tool<\/a> to see how often consumers are using Google and Bing to search for your products.<\/span><\/p>\n

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WordStream\u2019s <\/span><\/em>Free Keyword Tool<\/em><\/a> in action.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This raises a crucial question: What does sufficient search volume (i.e., demand) look like? To answer that, we\u2019ve got to do some math.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say you want to sell hand-crafted baseball gloves. You estimate that you can generate $20 of profit for every unit you sell. If you need to generate $10,000 of first-year profit to keep the dream alive, then you need to sell 500 gloves. At the outset, your goal is to drive half of those sales (250 units) through organic search marketing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, assuming you can get yourself to page one of the search results (a difficult task\u2014more on this later), you can expect a click-through rate of at least 3%<\/a>. For the sake of the easy math, we\u2019ll say you can expect to convert 5% of organic impressions into clicks. Of those clicks, you estimate that you can convert 2% into purchases. In order to sell 250 gloves, you\u2019d need to drive 12,500 clicks per year (1,042 clicks per month). In order to drive 12,500 clicks per year, you\u2019d need to generate 250,000 impressions per year (20,834 impressions per month).<\/span><\/p>\n

So, in order to justify building an ecommerce website, you\u2019d need to see enough search volume\u2014across Google and Bing\u2014to generate roughly 21,000 organic impressions per month.<\/p>\n

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On Google alone, these five keywords generate over 40,000 monthly searches in the US.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

If that number intimidates you, I\u2019ve got good news: Organic search is just one way <\/strong>to get consumers on your ecommerce website. Even if this channel only nets $3,000 of profit, you can still meet (or even exceed) your $10,000 goal by using paid search and paid social.<\/span><\/p>\n

Important note: <\/span><\/strong>Even if you don\u2019t plan to rely on organic search, it\u2019s still imperative that your products drive sufficient search volume. For one thing, succeeding with paid <\/em>search also requires solid search volume. Secondly, even if you plan to generate the majority of your sales through social media, search volume is a strong indicator of demand in general.<\/span><\/p>\n

Which leads me to step three \u2026 <\/span><\/p>\n

Step #3: Figure out how you\u2019re going to grow<\/span><\/h3>\n

Available domain? Check. Sufficient search volume? Check. Now, we have one final step before actually building your ecommerce website: putting together an online marketing strategy. Before you start taking product photos and drafting an \u201cAbout Us\u201d page, you need to determine how you\u2019re going to grow your online store.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s talk about the levers you can pull.<\/span><\/p>\n

Organic search marketing (a.k.a. search engine optimization)<\/span><\/h4>\n

The goal of organic search marketing\u2014also known as search engine optimization, or SEO\u2014is fairly straightforward: When shoppers use Google or Bing to search for a product you sell, you want your website to appear in the first page of results. As you probably know from your own shopping experiences, websites that are buried past the first page are rarely visited.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Via <\/span><\/em>Backlinko<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I encourage you to check out WordStream\u2019s guide to SEO for beginners<\/a>. The basic idea is that you need to identify high-volume, low-competition keywords related to your business and target them throughout your website copy (while faithfully addressing user intent, that is). Additionally, it\u2019s important that you maintain a logical site structure<\/a>, earn backlinks<\/a> from relevant publishers, and keep your page speed high<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Here are some of the advantages associated with SEO:<\/span><\/p>\n

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