WordPress is a fine option for e-commerce websites, but it’s not the greatest one. The needs of your company and how you want to sell goods online will determine whether WordPress is a good fit for your ecommerce store. It makes sense to look into WordPress alternatives like Shopify for this reason.
Major portions of the world went into lockdown on March 28, 2020, forcing many companies to temporarily close. The reopening business has rules that enforce social distance, demand mask use, and limit the number of customers who can enter the store at once. Although several nations are gradually lowering their prohibitions, it is still unknown if these modifications will last.
In recent years, online shopping has grown in popularity as individuals have grown more uneasy and possibly even afraid of purchasing in traditional businesses. As a result, consumers were already welcoming these businesses with open arms, which made the transfer to Amazon and other online merchants much simpler.
Online revenue increased by 44% in 2020, and in the first quarter of 2021, it increased by 39%. There is a significant likelihood that this tendency will continue as we get closer to the end of the quarantine period. Even though many retail establishments will reopen in the next months, internet shopping won’t be disappearing anytime soon. These elements suggest that now is the perfect time for you to begin your eCommerce efforts or to step up your current ones.
Why should you choose WordPress to build an eCommerce store?
A core team of developers and a burgeoning volunteer community work together to create the free and open-source WordPress content management system. Nearly 25% of all websites on the Internet are powered by the WordPress content management system. It blends simplicity of usage, making it appropriate for even the most basic webpages, with plugin-based flexibility, making it adaptable to any need.
Security updates and new features are consistently added thanks to WordPress’ open-source nature and community management. Almost everything you need to know about WordPress can be found online; chances are good that your query has already been addressed.
Since WordPress has a large number of ready-made themes appropriate for online retailers, you may use it to create an eCommerce website. Additionally, there are plugins for adding full eCommerce functionality, including product display, checkouts, and many other features you may add to boost your online eCommerce sales.
Last but not least, utilizing WordPress is a wise decision because it gives you total control over both the functionality and appearance of your website. The storefront can also include any other sites you need, such as a blog, a forum, and other pages. All of this is available with WordPress for free. WordPress is free to use, however certain plugins and themes need one-time payments. Pay monthly fees to domain and hosting providers. And as a result of all of this, WordPress has emerged as the top platform for eCommerce websites.
Benefits of using WordPress for eCommerce:
1. SEO-Friendly Website
WordPress has some very ingenious and helpful inbuilt SEO settings that you can use to make your web page search engine-friendly. It is because of this fact that WordPress itself has a wide variety of components and plugins which allow you to customize the SEO settings for your business website according to your preferences. Also, in fact there are multiple proven WordPress SEO tactics you could implement that will help your page rank in search engines.
It is no surprise that most of the top eCommerce development services recommend that businesses use WordPress for their eCommerce website development because it assists businesses with SEO as well as many other features.
All of your posts and pages are automatically tagged with title tags and meta descriptions. By doing this, you allow the search engines to learn about your content, which will help you get indexed and potentially move up in the rankings.
2. Easy to use.
A WordPress-based eCommerce website allows you to manage your content effectively. It means that it can be used for building websites, to add design to your website, and to update and edit your content as well. You can easily add a new post by simply clicking on the ‘Add New’ button in the posts section and add what you wish to write in the appropriate box which follows. If you want to edit an existing post, it is equally straightforward to do so.
I think it would be fair to say that creating an eCommerce shop through WordPress is the most convenient and simplest way to run your own business. As a result, you are no longer required to build your own store from scratch.
In order for you to accomplish the task at hand, you may have to dig into more advanced topics, but even in these cases, there is a huge array of tools and plugins to choose from, meaning you might be able to deal with your issue without having to touch a single line of code.
In assessing this point, I suppose another benefit of maintaining a website yourself is that you don’t have to rely completely on a web development company, as long as you know what you’re doing.
3. Numerous template options are available
The number of templates offered by WordPress for building your site is one of the most significant benefits of WordPress. You can use WordPress templates for eCommerce sites that capture your brand’s distinctive style, allowing you to develop your own special eCommerce site. There are over 8,000 themes available for WordPress. There are over 1,200 eCommerce focused templates that you can choose from for your site, enabling you to customize your site as you wish.
It is easy to build a site that meets the specific needs of your business since there are so many options available to you. In addition to that, these themes are responsive, so your website visitors will be able to enjoy a great experience regardless of which device they are using. Also, I would add that if you want to make some changes to the theme that you are using, it is also possible. Just hire a top WordPress development company, and they will make the necessary changes as per your requirement.
4. The WordPress Community Offers Support
Since WordPress is free and open-source software, which means there are WordPress communities around the world that are committed to its growth and development. WordPress lovers contribute to the source code and keep the software up and running.
The WordPress community also participates in a wide range of outreach activities, including hosting WordPress camps all over the world and assisting local user groups with setting up meetings.
5. Benefits of WooCommerce
If you are looking for a more secure and reliable platform, WordPress is one of the best platforms for website development. With WordPress, you get frequent updates and security patches which makes the website more secure. As well as this, there are several other techniques that can be used to improve the security of your website.
A team of developers at WooCommerce works closely with some of the world’s best security providers, such as Sucuri.net, to ensure that the online experience is as safe as possible. Moreover, WooCommerce makes it easy for you to incorporate new website security measures into your store by just clicking a single button to take action.
6. Responsive
When you consider that your eCommerce WordPress theme will need to work on a variety of devices, choosing one with responsive capabilities becomes essential. There are plugins that can be added to themes that aren’t responsive in order to enhance their ability to be responsive.
If, however, you are going to change your theme on a recurring basis, this will have an impact on the way your content is displayed on mobile devices, so select a theme that already includes this. Furthermore, it is also something that is taken into consideration by Google when it comes to ranking.
7. Multiple payment gateways integration
Whenever you are providing eCommerce website solutions to your clients, you should make sure that your online store is flexible enough to let the customers choose different payment options.
If you have WordPress installed as a CMS on your online store, you will be able to offer this option as well.
It is very important that you consider whether you are planning to create either a small business website or a large business website for your online store, as you will never know what payment method the customer is most fond of or if the customer only has one payment method that you are missing on your online store.
8. Speed and efficiency
Although it may seem impossible, WordPress allows you to construct a website in as little as a single day by simply uploading images and information to a WordPress site.
While some may argue that there are other proprietary software solutions available, none of them will deliver all of the benefits listed above at the same time, and none will come close to the value, versatility, and efficiency of the WordPress content management platform. However, WordPress sites can slow down for a number of reasons, and if this occurs, there are a lot of techniques to speed up your website.
9. Full ownership
One of the most significant advantages of using WooCommerce in conjunction with a self-hosted WordPress website is that your online store is fully yours and belongs only to you and your organisation.
Everything is hosted on your own server, which allows you to maintain complete control over the operations of your shops and to migrate them at any time to a new provider.
10. Accessible on multiple devices
One more benefit of the WordPress content management system is that it is accessible through a web browser. This allows you to log in from any internet device that has a connection to the internet and allows you to make changes to your website through the dashboard interface.
Wrapping it up
WordPress is the greatest option for starting an internet business and is also a commonly used content management system (CMS).
Rigorous security measures, a huge selection of plugins, gorgeous themes, and API integration are just a few of its numerous benefits. If you’re thinking about creating an eCommerce website for your business, WordPress is a fantastic option. To start with self-hosted WordPress.org, you’ll need a WordPress hosting account and a domain name.
We recommend using ASPHostPortal because they are one of the largest hosting companies in the world, and an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider. If your WordPress site already has a custom domain name, then you’ll still need web hosting. Go ahead and signup with ASPHostPortal and under the domain step, add your blog domain.