How to Build a Website to Sell Products: Step-by-Step Guide

If you have a brick-and-mortar store, selling your products through your website can help you expand your reach. To do this, you’ll need to know how to create an online shop.

The good news is there are plenty of powerful website builder platforms that help complete beginners launch an online store. These tools make it possible to customize your site without touching a line of code. Many of them come bundled with useful extras like free domains and email accounts.

In this post, we’ll look at the key elements you need to build a business website. Then, we’ll show you how to create a website to sell products. Let’s get started!

What Do You Need to Launch a Business Website?

As a business owner, it makes sense for you to sell your products online. You can maximize your reach, capture traffic without using paid ads, and establish an online presence.

However, there are a few things you’ll need if you plan to create an ecommerce site:

• A web hosting service. A hosting provider makes your content publicly accessible. You can find solutions that offer additional services too (like free domain registration), and take care of essential maintenance tasks.
• A custom domain name. A domain helps people locate your online store, but it’s also a key part of creating a strong brand identity. With the right domain extensions, it’s easier to establish trust with new customers.
• An SSL certificate. Your website should load using the secure HTTPS protocol, which requires an SSL certificate. This is necessary to encrypt sensitive customer details like credit card data.
• A website platform. Many website builder platforms come with hefty monthly fees and limited customization. Instead, you should use a flexible content management system (CMS) like WordPress, and add ecommerce functionality via a plugin.

Naturally, you might have additional requirements, but this covers the basic needs of most business websites.

How to Create a Website to Sell Products (5 Steps)

Now that you’ve got everything in order, here are the steps to launching your ecommerce website.

1. Choose the Right Website Builder

You want to select a website builder that offers the designs, features, functionality, and customization options that you require.

As a business owner, your website plays a critical role in your brand identity and customer experience, so you want to get it right. HeroBuilder by NameHero is an excellent choice:

This builder is powered by AI and creates your website in WordPress. Since you’re setting up an online store, you’ll also get WooCommerce pre-installed.

HeroBuilder is more flexible than other website builder platforms. It can set up any type of website, and when you purchase a plan, you’ll have full control over its customization and content.

With an AI HeroBuilder plan, you’ll get powerful web hosting, a custom domain name, an SSL certificate, business email accounts, and other features. By bundling everything together, you’re able to keep costs low and manage all aspects of your site from one central place.

2. Set Up Your WordPress Site

It couldn’t be easier to get started with HeroBuilder. From the official page, click on Get Started Free and complete the registration form.

At this point, you’ll be redirected to the HeroBuilder dashboard where you can create your first website. You have the option to import an existing WordPress website, or start from scratch:

Then, enter your ecommerce website name (which you can change later).

Since HeroBuilder leverages the power of AI, all you have to do is answer some questions and it will create your website according to your preferences. For instance, you can choose between a one-page and multi-page site, and define your website goals.

You can also pick a design for your site:

A stand-out feature of HeroBuilder is that you get the control to choose exactly which pages you want to add to your website.

You’ll find common options like the homepage and a contact page. You can also add an about page, a team page, a FAQ page, and more:

HeroBuilder also asks you to describe your business in as much detail as possible. You can also define the correct tone for your content e.g. friendly, professional, persuasive, etc.

Once that’s done, HeroBuilder takes care of creating your ecommerce website. It will add all your content, implement styles, and install relevant plugins.

3. Customize Your Web Pages

With HeroBuilder, you’ll be able to customize your site with the WordPress Site Editor.

Each page is built using WordPress blocks like images, buttons, headings, etc. Since HeroBuilder imports a pre-made layout, these blocks will already be in place for you.

You can customize every aspect of the design. You have the freedom to remove elements or rearrange them. If you select an item on the page, you can configure its settings on the right:

Here, you can change the colors, fonts, dimensions, borders, and more. Once you’re happy with how it looks, save your changes.

Then, click on the Edit Pages link in the NameHero toolbar (at the bottom of the screen).

This enables you to select a different page to edit such as the cart page, about page, shop page, or checkout page.

4. Add Your Products

When you exit the Site Editor, you’ll find yourself in the WordPress dashboard where you can manage every aspect of your online business.

Conveniently, HeroBuilder pre-installs WooCommerce for you. This plugin implements ecommerce functionality in WordPress. To list the items you want to sell, go to Products > Add new product:

Here, enter a product name, add a product description, and set a product image. If you have lots of inventory, you can also create product categories.

HeroBuilder installs the AIOSEO plugin for you, so you can optimize product pages for search engines. , You’ll want to enter relevant keywords to aid your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.

In the Product data box, you can determine your product type (e.g. simple, variable, affiliate), and set a price:

The additional tabs contain settings that help streamline inventory management, add shipping information, upsell and cross-sell products, and more. If you need to change the currency, go to WooCommerce > Settings.

Once you’re happy with your first product, save it or publish it straight away. Repeat the process to add more items to your online store.

5. Configure Payment Options

The final step to setting up your ecommerce website is to add your payment options. You’ll find a Payments tab in the WordPress dashboard.

As you can see in the screenshot below, you’re encouraged to set up WooPayments, which is WooCommerce’s payment gateway. This is certainly convenient, but you don’t have to enable it:

If you scroll down, you can configure PayPal Payments or Amazon Pay.

The good news is that WooCommerce has tons of payment gateway extensions. So, if you’d prefer to use an alternative like Stripe or Braintree, head to WooCommerce > Extensions. You’ll need to set up an account with your preferred payment provider.

Note that different providers charge different processing fees, so it’s best to do some research first. They might also support different payment methods e.g. credit cards, digital wallets (like Apple Pay), and alternative options (like Klarna).

Conclusion

Setting up an ecommerce store is an excellent move if you’re looking to sell stuff online. You can get your products in front of a global audience, making it easier to increase brand recognition and boost sales.

To recap, here’s how to create an ecommerce site to sell products:

1. Choose the right website builder.
2. Set up your WordPress site.
3. Customize your pages.
4. Add your products.
5. Configure payment options.

HeroBuilder enables you to instantly design an ecommerce store to sell services/products. It creates the website for you, based on your preferences, and you can customize everything using the WordPress dashboard and Site Editor. Get started for free today!