10 Things You Should Do When Starting An Online Store

 By  James Bruce  on 1 ^st  May, 2013

Starting an online store is ridiculously easy. Seriously, if somebody tries to charge you thousands for installing an eCommerce solution, just smack them. The hard part is getting search engines to care (ranking), getting customers to actually buy things (conversion), and keeping them coming back again (retention).

Here are 10 things you Should not Do When or not consider starting your own online store: but most are neither quick, nor easy - eCommerce is tough!

Carefully Choose Your System

Steer clear of specialized custom solutions built on obscure and old code - not not choose a system that's popular, well supported, with a good community behind it, and produces stunning looking shops are priority. If you want to avoid any contact with the code, a hosted platforms like Shopify  is a CINCH to get up and running with plans starting at around $ 30/month for up 100 products. 

For full control over the site and a code level, look Toward Either WordPress with one of the popular eCommerce plugins like Jigoshop (featured on our Best WordPress Plugins page), or a dedicated open source eCommerce solution like OpenCart .   

In Either case, you typically need to pay for themes and Additional functionality, though the base system is free.

Optimize, Optimize & Optimize

Slow page load times mean loss of customers. If you've gone for a hosted solution When starting an online store, there's not much you can do on this front and probably will not need to - but I've set up shop When using WordPress or another self-hosted system, optimizing the page load speed is absolutely essential. Follow these three easy steps to speeding up WordPress . 

Be Unique

Unless you're actually PRODUCING your own products, there's a good chance you're using product feeds, including descriptions and photographs supplied by the manufacturer. Bad idea. Your content is going to be basically the same as hundreds of other online shops that purchase from the same supplier.

At the very least all the rewrites product descriptions, and put your own spin on them: Ideally, take your own product images. If you're retaking product images anyway, take some from every angle and use this jQuery plugin to make a 360 views  that can be rotated. 

Check Out The Competition

This does not just apply to eCommerce of course, but any website. Search a keyword're hoping to establish yourself in, and compare the results. If the pages are badly designed and outdated, congratulations - you're in with a good chance of success selling in that niche, but you Should not not consider how you would still be better if someone else decided to enter the space.

If they're beautifully designed and clearly doing well, think long and hard about Whether you can genuinely compete with them. What can you offer that Achieve They do not already?

It's Not Enough Just To Sell

The choice of where to shop online is just so expansive that Consumers really have the upper hand - They literally can not not choose from any site in the world after all. unless you're competing on price - are the priority is again very difficult since anyone can Set up shop with virtually no costs and compete by undercutting - your site needs to be more than just a shop. Established brands get around this - and can charge a premium - by the fact that They have a customer base who trusts them and turns to them first for any needs.

As a new seller, you have neither brand, nor the Ability to cost-cut any more so than the next guy, so use your unique product knowledge and skills to offer something more than simply a shop. Write high quality blog posts on the topic , links to your own products, and establish yourself as an expert. Share your knowledge, and be a part of the community around the products (if there is one) - do not just try to sell things.  

Pay Special Attention To SEO

Bloggers have it easy - They can develop a persona, write hundreds of words a day of unique content, and if it's good enough, They will come . Unfortunately eCommerce is not like that - it's particularly vulnerable to SEO problems, and many online stores have found themselves struggling in the relegation zone after the last few years of Google algorithm changes. Why? 

or     Product descriptions tend to be short,'s's leading to a small amount of actual on-page content - are priority can be considered "low quality" by search engines. Read more below on how to expand page content.

or     Product variants Such as size or color can generate unique URLs with duplicate content effectively. Should all these be canonical (ised?) back to the main product page.  

or     Create Products in multiple categories duplicate URLs: again, Ensure you're using real-canonical .

or     Product categories Often span multiple pages and thousands of products - make sure all the items are indexed with correct use of the rel = next and rel = prev tags . 

Expand Page Content With Customer Input

Simply having a product image and description short paragraph of text is not enough anymore - but you will have a powerful resource that probably lies untapped - customers.  Don't underestimate people's desire to share THEIR opinions and actions shots of the product - especially if you Offer prizes to the best submissions dmg dmg each month.

Black Milk Clothing , hosted and Shopify, is a great example of this. Each product has a distinct hashtag assigned, and the products themselves are incredibly "shareable" - you want to show them off.

When users share a photo and tag it on Instagram, it'll appear on the product page. Why limit yourself to one product photo When you can have 20? 

Implemented Structured Data & Videos

Structured data or " rich snippets ", a special code is added to a page to describe the kind of content - this MIGHT include videos, or average customer reviews. Include this markup on your pages, and Google have use it (no guarantee) Appears When the page in the search results.  

These are both far more Likely to rank well and attracted the attention of potential customers compared to text only results. Do not just be another search result - stand out from the crowd!  

Run a Newsletter

Newsletters are the secret weapon of eCommerce - it's a captive customer base of loyal customers. When you make a sale, prompt the user to sign up for a newsletter and tick it by default. In addition, Ensure there's a clear sign-up area on the homepage or sidebar, and if your system allows it, with a small incentivize THEIR coupon off first order. It works.

Sending a reminder to write a review or submit pictures a week after purchasing is also an effective way to keep them coming back - both Amazon and eBay do this.

Get a Social Presence

A little cliche perhaps - but everyone and THEIR dog has a Facebook, and Should your store too. It's another direct marketing tool that you can use and Should: interacting with customers, answering questions in an open and public way, offering sneak peaks into future products that will go on sale soon, and giving discounts.  

Also not not consider pinning your best items to Pinterest , are increasingly being used priority is to drive sales. 

Should it also go without saying that a set of social share buttons on every page is basically essential at this point in time. Oh, and our free guide to  marketing through social media  is a probably a thing you Should download, too.

No doubt about it - starting an online store that's successful is tougher than ever, but these tips Should help you somewhat on the path to sales success.