Developing an Ecommerce Website in 10 Steps

Your ecommerce website is the gateway to more customers finding out about your product and spreading the word. It should provide a seamless experience that’s secure and can scale as your business grows. In this article, discover the essentials to launching a successful ecommerce website that drives conversions and builds trust with your customers.

1. Secure Your Domain Name

Your domain name forms the basis of your digital identity. Choose a domain name that’s easy to remember, relevant to your brand and easy to spell. Avoid using underscores.

Check and see whether the domain name is available. Once you have secured a domain name, no one else can copy it.

Website builders often use their own domain as part of the website address. The benefit of this is you can create a “free” website without buying a domain, however, this does let your website visitors know your website has been created cheaply, which may not provide the best first impression.

For ecommerce websites, it’s likely that the main domain types you’ll be choosing between are .co.uk for UK based sites or .com. .com remains the most popular option.

Explore our guide to what is a domain name and how to get one, for more information.

2. Choose an Optimal Ecommerce Platform

The ecommerce platform you select will set you up for success, or not. When selecting a platform consider factors like ease of use, customisation and personalisation, scalability, integrations with plugins, and support available.

Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Laravel, Wix and Squarespace are all popular options.

Find out more about the best ecommerce platforms for SMEs in the UK for more information.

3. Obtain an SSL Certificate

An SSL certificate encrypts data transferred between your website and users. This helps to ensure sensitive information like payment information remains safe and secure. If you’re self-hosting your website, you may need to purchase an SSL certificate separately, however, if you use an ecommerce platform, most offer a built-in SSL.

4. Consider Hosting Packages

Depending on the platform you use, you may need to consider hosting packages. Self-hosted platforms like WooCommerce or Magento will require you to select a hosting provider.

When choosing hosting packages, look for ones that offer high uptime, fast load times, regular backups and strong security features.

Cloud-based and managed hosting options can provide improved performance and scalability.

Find out more in our guide to types of website hosting services.

5. Select a Payment Service Provider

Choosing the optimal payment service provider can help to provide smooth, secure transactions and improve your conversion rate. Select a payment service provider by considering elements like variety of payment methods, reliability, security, user-experience, transaction fees, customer support and integration with your ecommerce platform.

Popular payment gateways for ecommerce in the UK include Stripe, PayPal, Square, Klarna, Adyen and Worldpay.

6. Consider GDPR, Terms and Conditions

Legal compliance is crucial. Ensure GDPR compliance by clearly explaining how you collect, use and store data. Include a comprehensive Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy and Returns Policy on your site. Working with a web design agency can assist you with this.

7. Create Content and Optimise for SEO

Creating informative, relevant content is key to attracting and engaging website visitors and turning them into customers.

Focus firstly on creating compelling product descriptions and FAQs so website visitors fully understand your offering. After this, create persuasive landing pages and consider posting informative blog posts, to help your business rank for long-tail keywords.

Focus on optimising your content for SEO by naturally including relevant keywords within your copy, optimising metadata (titles, meta descriptions), implementing on-page headers correctly and taking other measures like optimising page speed and using descriptive URLs.

8. Design a User-Friendly Interface

Using a clean, intuitive website layout is key to driving conversions. Make browsing and buying effortless by implementing a simple, easy-to-understand navigation. Add clear calls-to-action where relevant and make use of high-quality imagery to create a professional image. Implementing functionalities like product filters and search functionality can also help to improve the user experience and increase conversions.

9. Test and Iterate

Ensure to test your website rigorously. Check how it performs on different browsers and different devices to ensure everything displays as expected. Check for browser compatibility, mobile responsiveness and check for broken links. Test the payment processing functionality.

Consider conducting usability testing to gather feedback to make changes.

10. Launch and Promote your Store

Once you have fully tested your staging site, it’s time to launch your site! Consider promoting your site through PPC, as well as through social media and email marketing.

Ecommerce Website FAQs

What are the most common mistakes to avoid when building an e-commerce site?

The most common mistakes to avoid when building an ecommerce website include poor mobile optimisation, not optimising for user experience, thin product information, not optimising for product speed, choosing a suboptimal ecommerce platform and weak security measures.

How can I ensure my e-commerce site is secure and trustworthy?

Take steps to secure your website by obtaining an SSL certificate, use security plugins to scan your site regularly for threats, enable two-factor authentication, regularly update your software and perform regular backups.

What are the best platforms for building an e-commerce site?

The best platforms for building an ecommerce site include WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Shopify, Laravel, Wix and Squarespace.

What are the key elements of a successful e-commerce site?

The key elements of a successful ecommerce website include implementing a user-friendly interface, mobile responsiveness, fast loading times, clear navigation and product organisation, high-quality imagery, detailed product descriptions, offering multiple payment options and offering a streamlined checkout process.

Our Ecommerce Website Design Expertise

Yellowball is an ecommerce web design agency in London. We know that building your website correctly can make a big difference in your ecommerce success. Our team has experience working with a range of ecommerce businesses and can work with you to create the best ecommerce website for your needs.

Whether you’re a small UK business looking for an affordable website solution, or a large enterprise seeking an international website solution, we’re here to guide you every step of the way. Contact Yellowball today, and let’s create an ecommerce experience that’s seamless, secure, and tailored to your customers.

Ameet Chohan

Ameet is the Head of Project Management at Yellowball. Ameet is an experienced creative, technical and adaptive Digital Project Manager, who has completed web design and development projects across the whole software development lifecycle for over 14 years using Waterfall, Agile and hybrid methods.