Selling your products online

 

An eCommerce solution is a feature-filled, customisable online storefront and shopping cart that will be integrated into the WordPress CMS. This will allow you to manage both your website pages and all of your store’s products in one place. You will have full control over orders, shipping costs, sales, promotions, discounts and products.

 

 

In order to receive credit card payments, you will need to have a secure hosting package with an SSL certificate to ensure the security of your customer’s credit card details. You will also need a payment gateway to process the credit card payments and a merchant account with your bank to receive the payments.

 

 SSL Certificate

 

The SSL certificate can be thought of as a lock-box for your data. It doesn’t make it any harder for anyone to obtain the data but it encrypts the data to the point that nobody can understand it. In addition to encrypting data, the SSL certificate ensures visitors that your business is legitimate, and will not attempt to defraud them in any way.

 

 Payment Gateways

 

An eCommerce payment gateway is a service that authorises your customers’ credit card payments while processing them securely with your merchant account.

 

 Merchant Account

 

When dealing with a payment gateway, you will also be required to establish an online merchant account with your bank (fees vary depending on the bank). We will be able to provide you with information and instructions on how to establish a merchant account once we know which bank you are using.

 

 WooCommerce

 

Your WordPress website will be transformed into an eCommerce online store using WooCommerce. WooCommerce is a WordPress eCommerce toolkit that helps you sell products online through your website. WooCommerce allows you to easily add, edit and amend products and pricing at any time, run sales and coupon campaigns offering a range of discount options such as 10% off or free shipping, and keep up-to-date with the store’s performance by viewing detailed reports.

 

 WooCommerce 2.0+ has been fully security audited by the leading WordPress security firm Sucuri to ensure it meets the highest WordPress security standards possible.

Social Media Integration

Social media integration connects your website to your social media accounts allowing new content that you add to your website to also be posted to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc. Visitors will also be able to share content from your website through their social media accounts. To encourage conversation reviews, comments and testimonials can also be integrated into your website.

 

Social Media Buttons

Social media buttons will be added to your website linking your audience to your social media accounts including Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn, YouTube, Vimeo, Pinterest etc.

 

Share buttons will be added to specific content on your website. For example, photos, blog articles, upcoming events and the venue’s location can all be shared through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google Plus etc.

 

Social Feeds

Facebook and Twitter feeds will be added to your website, updating automatically as you add more posts. An Instagram feed will also be added displaying all of your Instagram photos.

 

Blog automatically posting to Facebook & Twitter

Blog content that you add to your website will be automatically posted on Facebook and Twitter.

 

Integration of Facebook ‘Like’ App

A Facebook ‘Like’ app will be embedded into your website to allow your audience to Like your Facebook page without leaving your website.

 

MailChimp Newsletter Sign-Up

Your audience will be able to sign-up for your newsletter directly through your website. Their email address will automatically be added into your MailChimp subscriber list.

 

Website Search Engine Optimisation

 SEO is the practice of improving and promoting a website in order to increase the number of visitors it receives through search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. When a visitor searches for a website on Google, they type keywords that best describe the website they are looking for. The websites that Google lists have been fully optimised to show up for those specific keywords. For example, if someone searches for a ‘florist in Melbourne’ Google will list all websites in Melbourne relating to florists. But how does Google know that a website relates to a ‘florist in Melbourne’ and in what order to rank them?

 

Content

 Creating keyword-rich content and producing fresh content regularly is a key factor in SEO. Optimising images for best quality while reducing file size also plays a role. Behind the scenes, your website will contain meta tags, meta keywords, meta descriptions, ALT tags, title tags, optimised naming conventions and site-maps. Google utilises all of this information to best target traffic to your website by people looking for what you offer.

 

 Performance

 

Ensuring your website loads quickly and works efficiently is another key factor in SEO optimisation.

 

 User Experience

 

User experience describes how visitors interact with your website and what impression they are left with. Ease of navigation, legible text, rich content and a brand identity they can trust all contribute towards a positive user experience. As previously mentioned, more than a quarter of all Google searches are now taking place from mobile devices. Google not only recommends responsive layouts but also favours websites with responsive layouts. This is especially true when a user searches for local services using a mobile device.

 

 Google Places

 

A Google Places listing will allow your website to appear alongside its competitors on the Google Maps view when a visitor searches for your services. In order to set-up, a Google Places listing Google must post a PIN number to your company’s address. This verification adds a level of trust to your website for the visitors and for the Google search engines.

 

 Google Analytics

 

Google Analytics is a service that generates detailed statistics about a website’s traffic, visitor’s keywords, number of visitors, how the visitors have found your website and where they have accessed it from. Using this information it is possible to improve the flow of visitors to your website by fine-tuning the SEO.

 

 Google AdWords

 

Google AdWords is a service that advertises your website at the top of the Google listings when a user searches for your specific keywords. Google displays the advertisement for free but has a ‘pay per click’ system which means that you will be charged every time a user clicks on your ad. You’ll start by choosing a daily budget that you are comfortable with, and then change it at any time. There’s no minimum spend and you’re not locked into a contract.

Responsive Website Design

Having a responsive layout means that your website fluidly resizes for optimal viewing regardless of the screen size or device (desktop computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone). This ensures ease of use and a better audience experience without the need for panning, scrolling or resizing. Your audience is much more likely to enjoy viewing your website on a mobile device without needing to zoom in to read the text or to find the navigation menu.

Website Development — Building your website

The website development process starts by taking the graphical elements (colours, fonts, layout, images) defined in the design process and coding them using web industry standards (PHP, HTML5, CSS3, JS, jQuery). This is typically done by first coding the home page, followed by templates for the interior pages. When the website is ready for review you will be supplied with login details to view the website before it is launched to the public. You will also be supplied with instructions on how to update your website.

 

WordPress CMS Development

Your website will be developed using the WordPress CMS (Content Management System). WordPress CMS adds a user-friendly administrative area to your website allowing you to easily login and update the content of your website at any time. You can effortlessly make textual, graphic or structural changes to the website in an instant without having to deal with or look at any of the complicated programming code.

 

Cross-browser & Cross-device Testing

It’s important for your website to function correctly regardless of what browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer) or device (iPhone, iPad, desktop computer) your audience is using. Before launch, your website will be testing on the latest versions of the major browsers, and across a range of mobile devices to ensure that it looks and functions correctly. Having a responsive website design is vital to ensure your audience has the best experience using your website on a mobile device without the need for panning, scrolling or resizes the page.

 

 

WordPress Version & Plugin Updates

If your website is built with WordPress it’s crucial to keep the WordPress version and plugins up-to-date to eliminate vulnerabilities. This is an ongoing process as new WordPress versions are being released all the time. Any vulnerability with the files can lead to a hacker attacking your website. Types of attacks vary but examples include sending SPAM emails to your clients or uploading additional pages or sections to your website advertising the hacker’s products.

 

WordPress Security Maintenance

Having reliable security measures in place from the start is key to ensuring that your website is not a target for hackers. As standard, I always add basic security precautions into every WordPress website but on-going maintenance is also available.