Create a professional online store in 11 easy steps

E-commerce has grown in the past few years and flourished at an accelerated pace, which has made many people who own and do not own traditional stores think about creating a professional e-store on the Internet to make a profit from selling physical and digital products.

Although creating a professional online store is never a difficult task, as we will explain later, if you have not created a website or online store before, you may not be able in a short time to reach your goal and create a technically good online store.

Therefore, we will show you here how creating a professional online store using free tools does not require high programming or technical knowledge. Then we will shed light on the best tools that enable you to create a successful store. Then we will explain to you how to do that by relying on the best tools to perform this task. It is WooCommerce.

Does creating an online store require programming experience?

In the past, it may not have been possible in any way to create an online store or even a website without high-level programming knowledge or paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars to a specialized developer, but the matter has not remained this way, as over time many tools have been developed that… It enables people without programming or technical experience to create their own online stores at low costs, and without hiring specialized developers.

These days, almost anyone who is able to use computers and other electronic devices can create a professional online store within a short time through many methods provided by free and paid tools specialized in facilitating the task and accelerating the possibility of doing it, and we show you the best and most famous of these tools. In the next paragraph.

Tools for creating an online store

There are many tools that provide the possibility of creating a professional online store today, but these tools differ in terms of technical characteristics and many other aspects, and we cannot here introduce you to all of these tools due to their abundance, so we will highlight the most famous of them in the following list:

WooCommerce : It is a free plugin installed on the WordPress system , which adds e-commerce functionality and turns the website into a powerful, highly professional online store with the help of many other plugins.
Shopify : It is an e-commerce platform that offers users many services, including the ability to create an online store with high-level technical features.
Weebly : It is an easy-to-use online store creation tool that provides good features on free and paid plans, and can be used by small and medium businesses.
Square Space : It is one of the best tools that can be used to create excellent online stores in terms of design with great ease, and it includes wonderful templates that suit various industries.

Among all the tools that we mentioned in the previous list, and the tools that we did not mention, WooCommerce is considered one of the best of all in general, as it has many useful features that cannot be found in other tools.

Features of the WooCommerce system

The WooCommerce program has many technical and non-technical features that enable it to provide excellent benefits to e-store owners regardless of the goals they aspire to achieve and the type of e-store desired to be created. For example, but not limited to, the most prominent of these advantages include:

Both WooCommerce and the WordPress program on which it depends are free and open source , and they can be downloaded, modified, and used without paying any money, unlike many other similar tools.
WooCommerce functionality can be expanded without restrictions through plugins available for WordPress in general, and plugins specifically designed to work with WooCommerce stores.
Like WordPress, WooCommerce has a huge community willing to help, and there are plenty of tutorials online, which means you can solve almost any problem you have yourself by researching and learning. (You can check out the WordPress community, for example)
WooCommerce is easy to integrate with popular analytics systems such as Google Analytics , which makes it easier for the store owner to analyze the behavior of visitors and customers to achieve more profits.
Easy to use , as it can be used by beginners who do not have a lot of information about developing websites and online stores, but it is nonetheless suitable for developers, as it provides powerful options for them as well.
The appearance of the store can be easily changed depending on the ready-made free templates found on the official website , as well as paid templates that can be obtained from sites specialized in selling ready-made businesses such as .

WooCommerce is also fast, compatible with various types of devices, and friendly to search engines, and this will greatly help you rank at the top of the results and bring you more profits if you follow the correct strategies and methods appropriate for that.

Steps to create an online store through WooCommerce

There are a set of practical steps that must be applied in order to create an online store based on WooCommerce, and many of these steps are similar to the steps of how to create a website or blog through WordPress, but some of them are specific only to how to create an online store.

Here we will explain all the steps, regardless of whether they are for creating a website or an online store, each in a separate paragraph, but we will first list those steps in a list so that you have an initial idea about what you must apply to have a professional online store:

Get a domain name.
Get web hosting.
Installing WordPress on hosting.
Installing WooCommerce on WordPress.
Set up WooCommerce properly.
Setting up the payment gateway for the online store.
Adding products to the online store.
Choose a suitable template for the online store.
Install the necessary plugins.
Learn store management through WooCommerce.
Continuously improve the store to increase profits.

Step 1: Get a domain name

A domain name is one of the most important basic requirements for creating a successful professional online store, as this element allows visitors to access your store by entering it into the browser address bar, and it is never possible to create a website without obtaining a domain name.

There are many types of domain names, and some of them can be obtained for free, but in order to build an online store, you must use a paid domain name with a popular extension that instills confidence in your store in the visitor, and makes him comfortable when purchasing products and making payments that require entering sensitive financial information.

You can obtain a professional domain name for your online store from the websites of famous companies that sell domain names on the Internet, such as Domain.com or one of the sites we mentioned in our article ( the best sites to buy a domain at a low cost ).

It is also worth noting that many hosting companies provide a paid domain name for a certain period as part of the hosting plan features, and if you choose a hosting plan that includes this feature, you may be able to save some of the money that you would have paid to purchase the domain name.

Step 2: Get web hosting

Web hosting is also one of the basic requirements for creating an online store, because it stores the files and data of the products and the entire online store, and sends it to the web browsers on visitors’ devices when requested by them by entering the store’s address (domain name) in the address bar, or clicking on one of the following: Search results that lead to one of the online store pages.

There are many types of hosting that can be purchased, and not all of these types are suitable for all cases. There are also multiple plans usually available within the framework of each type, and no plan is suitable for all cases. When you want to get hosting, you must know the type. And the appropriate plan for your online store after studying the features and resources available within the plans and what your online store needs to function properly and without problems.

We have explained in detail the correct way to choose hosting for WooCommerce stores in a separate article entitled ( How to Choose the Appropriate Hosting for a WooCommerce Store ), and we strongly encourage you to review it before purchasing hosting for your online store, as we have mentioned in it the most important criteria upon which hosting must be chosen, in addition to: A list of the best companies that provide suitable hosting services for the online store.

You must also install an SSL certificate that encrypts the information that is exchanged between the store and visitors, in order to prevent hackers from obtaining that information and using it to steal or blackmail your customers. You can do this by following the methods described in the article ( Obtaining an SSL certificate for free). And link it to your website in the easiest way .

Step 3: Install WordPress on the hosting

After obtaining the domain name and web hosting and linking the domain to the hosting if necessary, you must install the free content management system WordPress, within which the WooCommerce program runs on hosting. This program allows the creation and management of the online store easily, and enables non-specialists to Create their own stores without hiring a developer.

There are many ways to install WordPress on hosting, and although all of them can be applied by any user by carefully following the instructions, the difficulty of implementing them is different, and we advise you to follow the easiest method if it is possible for you, which is to install WordPress on hosting through Automatic installer in your hosting control panel.

We have explained two basic methods for installing WordPress on web hosting (including the method that relies on the automatic installer) in detail and with pictures in the article ( How to download and install WordPress on hosting ), where you can review them and apply the method that you think is most appropriate for your case, noting that The result will be the same, as in both methods you will end up with hosting with WordPress installed.

Step 4: Install WooCommerce on WordPress

WooCommerce is an additional component that is installed on WordPress to create an online store, as we mentioned previously, and therefore the method of installing it does not differ from the method of installing any WordPress add-on found in the Add-ons section on the official website of the system, where you can go directly to the Add-ons section in the WordPress control panel, and search for Installing and activating “WooCommerce” is that simple.

**Installing WooCommerce on WordPress to create a website**

We have also explained with pictures several ways to install WordPress plugins in a separate article entitled ( How to install a WordPress plugin and activate it on your site correctly ). You can view the article and follow any method described in it to install your WooCommerce plugin.

Step 5: Set up WooCommerce properly

After installing and activating WooCommerce on WordPress to create a professional online store based on it, you must set it up correctly so that you can use it without problems. Although doing so is not difficult, as WooCommerce itself provides sufficient educational instructions, we will explain that here to ensure that You are performing the steps exactly as you should.

To set up and set up WooCommerce, head directly to the WooCommerce Setup Wizard. You can do this in several ways. For example, after activating the WooCommerce add-on, you will be directed directly to the setup wizard. You can also go to the wizard by clicking on the (Home Page) option that appears when you place the mouse cursor on the word (WooCommerce) in the side menu. To the WordPress control panel (this option takes you to the wizard only if WooCommerce is not set up).

**Click on the (Home Page) option in the WooCommerce menu in WordPress**

The WooCommerce setup process includes a set of steps, and the setup wizard itself will guide you after opening it on how to implement it. Immediately after running the WooCommerce setup wizard, a page will appear asking you to enter some details about the store you want to create, including its address, city, and so on. On that page, enter the necessary information correctly, then click the (Continue) button.

**Enter some details about the store and proceed to the next step**

A page will now appear asking you to choose the industry that the online store you are creating specializes in. Simply select the appropriate industry or industries from the list, or enter custom industries if not all industries related to your store are in the list, by selecting the (More) option, entering the industry description, and then clicking the (Continue) button.

**Select the online store industry and proceed to the next step**

A page will appear where you can select the types of products you will sell. Choose the types you want, then click the (Continue) button, but you should note here that not all of these types are free, as some of them require payment of sums of money.

**Determine the types of products you want to sell and proceed to the next step**

You must now determine the number of products that you plan to sell in your online store, and you must also determine whether you sell the products in another place other than the store you are currently creating, and answer all the questions that appear based on your answers, and then you must click on (Continue) button to move to the next step.

**Answer some questions about the online store and follow up**

In this step, you can add a bunch of free features to your store, including adding speed and security ( Jetpack ) and more. If you want to add all the suggested features, you can click the (Continue) button to add them and go directly to the final step.

If you do not want to add any of the features, remove the checkmark next to the phrase (Add recommended business features to my site), then click the (Continue) button. If you would like to add specific features from the suggested features, you can click on the arrow next to the phrase (Add recommended business features to my site), select the features you want to add, then click the (Continue) button to move to the final step.

**Add some free features to the online store and continue to the last step**

The final step in the process of preparing WooCommerce to create a professional online store is to select a suitable template for the store, and because we will talk about that later in a separate paragraph, you can skip this step by scrolling down, then clicking on the phrase (Skip this step), or by clicking Click on the “Continue using my active template” button, where you will be taken to the WooCommerce home page that allows you to manage your online store.

**Click on the (Continue using the active template) button and finish setting up WooCommerce**

Step 6: Set up payment gateways for the online store

After you have finished setting up WooCommerce according to the instructions of the setup wizard as we explained in the previous step, you must create a method through which buyers can pay you, and this is done by setting up a payment gateway for the online store.

There are many payment gateways that integrate with WooCommerce, and more than one payment gateway can be used in the store, and some of them are easy to set up, as WooCommerce itself provides within the settings the ability to do so, while some payment gateways need to be activated by installing add-ons and so on. .

We have explained how you should choose the payment gateway for the online store, and how to set up the most important gateways, in a separate, detailed article entitled (Payment methods in WooCommerce stores and how to choose the most appropriate method ). You can go directly to it and set up a suitable payment method for your WooCommerce store.

Step 7: Add products to the online store

This step is one of the most important steps in creating a professional online store, because selling products is the primary goal of creating any online store, and therefore it must be implemented with precision and mastery so that poorly added products do not stand in the way of your success in achieving the profits that you were hoping to obtain.

To add a product to the online store in WooCommerce, place the mouse cursor on the word (products) that was recently added after installing WooCommerce on WordPress to the side menu in the backend, then click on the option (Add a new product) from the drop-down menu that appears.

**Click Add New Product to add a product to your WooCommerce Store**

A page will appear asking you to enter information about the product you want to add. It is similar to the content entry page in the old classic editor in WordPress. We will explain in the following lines how to enter the necessary information and publish the product on the WooCommerce store.

Enter the product name (product title) in the Product Name field, and a suitable and sufficient description in the field below the Product Name field.

**The product name and description fields**

Scroll down to the Product Data section, then fill in the various tab fields with the necessary information exactly as shown next to each field. We would like to draw your attention here to the fact that it is not technically necessary to fill in all the existing fields, but it is preferable to provide all the information of interest to the potential customer about the product.

**Enter a short description of the product**

Now fill in the fields of the sections located on the left side of the page, i.e. tags and categories , then select a main image of the product from the (Product Image) section, then choose a group of images to add to the product image gallery from the (Product Image Gallery) section, and then click Click on the (Publish) button to publish the product whose information you added on the page.

**Publish the product in the online store**

In the same way, add all the products that you will sell in your online store, and make sure that your information is completely correct and sufficient, and also make sure to provide a photo gallery of the product, because pictures are able to convey information that words cannot.

Step 8: Choose a suitable template for the online store

WordPress templates for e-stores determine the appearance of the store for visitors and potential customers, so choosing an appropriate template is one of the most important things you should care about after creating an e-store to put yourself on the path to success, as the appearance of the e-store is linked to visitors’ decisions, and thus to the amount of sales and profits.

While choosing a WooCommerce template for the online store, you must take into account a set of basic criteria to be able to identify and choose a suitable template, especially with the presence of a large number of free and paid WooCommerce templates. The most important criteria for choosing a template for the online store include:

Simplicity , as the WooCommerce template should be simple and uncomplicated, and it is not desirable to include a lot of unnecessary animation.
Responsiveness , as the template must be suitable for the store to be displayed well on all types of devices, including smartphones and computers.
Integration with popular WooCommerce and WordPress plugins . A theme that is not integrated with plugins will prevent you from implementing important functionality in the store.
SEO compatibility , as template codes must be search engine friendly in order to enable you to achieve a high position in search results.

Because searching through a large number of templates for the best ones is not easy, in addition to the fact that a large number of them are not available in Arabic, and this is an important problem if you want to create an online store with an Arabic interface, we have Arabized a group of the best safe templates suitable for electronic stores, and published them on the page ( Arabized WordPress templates for online stores ), where you can browse, download, and use whatever suits you.

Step 9: Install the necessary plugins

After performing the previous steps on how to create a professional online store using WooCommerce, you have almost finished creating the store, but you are not yet able to perform all the tasks you need to make your business successful and achieve a lot of profits, so you must install some necessary plugins that provide you with the ability to Do these tasks.

In fact, the necessary add-ons that must be installed vary from one store to another depending on many factors, but there is a group of add-ons that are required for almost all online stores, and you must install them on your online store, including All in One SEO , MonsterInsights , and Jetpack .

There are also many other add-ons that many WooCommerce stores may need, and we have listed them in these articles:

Step 10: Learn to manage a store through WooCommerce

After creating the online store, installing the necessary additions to it, and listing products in it, you must learn how to manage it. Of course, this step is not one of the steps in creating an online store, but it is one of the most important steps that begins almost at the end of its creation, and continues throughout the period of its operation, which is why it is important to highlight it.

There are many aspects that must be learned in WooCommerce to manage the online store professionally and effectively, and there is no room to explain them all here because they are many, so we have devoted comprehensive articles to them that explain them, and you can access them by using the search engine on our website, and we also provide you in the following list of the most important ones:

Step 11: Continuously improve the store to increase profits

After creating your own online store using the WooCommerce program based on the WordPress content management system by following the ten steps that we explained above, your goal of achieving the amount of profits that you aspire to will not be achieved immediately after you finish implementing these steps, but rather you must work hard. And improve various aspects of your store to increase your sales and profits to the extent you want.

You should not do the process of improving the online store and finish it. This step is one of the steps that must be carried out continuously, and you should never stop. This is because if you do not improve your store, your sales and profits will certainly decrease instead of increasing because your competitors will continue to improve their stores. This will make customers prefer it over your store.

Improvement processes must also take place in the various aspects of the online store, both technical and non-technical. For example, you must not only improve the way visitors and customers browse and purchase from the store, but you must also improve the products and services that you provide continuously, as this will make your customers loyal. We are eager for what you will offer them in the future.

We have talked in many articles about how to improve the online store and increase sales and profits, and among the most prominent of these articles are what we will present in the following list:

You can also learn more about ways to improve the online store to increase sales and profits by browsing various other articles on our website. If you want an explanation related to a specific aspect of the store, you can use the search box to reach the article you want.

With this, dear readers, we have finished introducing you to WooCommerce, which is the best program for creating an online store, its best features, and the steps to create a professional online store using it in detail.

In conclusion, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that most of the non-technical advice related to online stores contained in the articles that we have referred to in this article, and in other articles on our website, is useful for all online stores regardless of the methods of creating them, which means that if you have not used WooCommerce to create your store, you cannot You can still benefit from it to improve it and increase profits and sales to advance towards the goal you aspire to reach.