How to Add Your Products in Woocommerce: Step-by-Step Guide
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10/07/2021Do you need an eCommerce for your business? And do you want to start an eCommerce business using WooCommerce? Need a WooCommerce guide that is easy to follow for non-techy users? If so, you are in the right place.
WooCommerce is the best and most popular eCommerce platform globally. It is super-flexible, cost-effective, and easy to manage, even for beginners.
Many beginners feel a bit overwhelmed by setting up WooCommerce themselves. As a result, most users struggle to understand how to get started with WooCommerce and set WooCommerce up correctly.
In this ultimate WooCommerce guide, we will guide you through setting up WooCommerce with step-by-step instructions. We will also share WooCommerce resources like best WooCommerce themes, WooCommerce SEO tips, and other valuable resources to help you grow your online store.
What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is a free eCommerce software that makes it easy to sell products and services online. It has become the most used eCommerce platform by millions of small and large businesses (online stores).
WooCommerce is developed as an extension of WordPress, the most popular website builder on the market. This allows users to build an eCommerce website from scratch or add shopping cart functionality to an existing website.
As open-source software, WooCommerce is free to download and use. However, while the WooCommerce software is free, you still need a domain name and web hosting that will cost you money. We will talk about pricing later in this article.
WooCommerce Review + Pros and Cons Comparison
WooCommerce is now the #1 eCommerce software globally because it is easy to use for beginners and has compelling features.
Since WooCommerce is open source, it is 100% free, but you also get complete freedom and control over your eCommerce website.
Unlike other proprietary eCommerce platforms, WooCommerce pricing does not include licensing fees. This means you can use it to create as many online stores and eCommerce websites as you like.
WooCommerce is a plugin built on top of WordPress, which means you benefit from all the powerful features of WordPress.
There are so many beautiful WooCommerce designs and templates that you can choose from to start your online store, or we can build one for you that is exclusively individual to your business. Each of them comes with easy-to-use customisation options, and many of them are available for free.
One of many reasons business owners love WooCommerce is its flexibility. You can feature WooCommerce by using various WooCommerce plugins (also known as addons). In addition, there are thousands of WooCommerce specific plugins that you can use to extend its functionality to add features like booking, subscriptions, shipping platform integrations, sales tax collection, etc.
Apart from plugins explicitly made for WooCommerce, you can also use thousands of WordPress plugins on your website to add features like contact forms, call now buttons, galleries, data backup, security firewall, etc.
Another advantage of using WooCommerce is that it puts no restrictions on how you run your business.
There are no limits on how many products you can add, make unlimited sales, import and export product data, and add as many product images as you want, videos, categories, and more.
Accepting payments online is a significant hurdle for many users. For those users, the most crucial benefit of using WooCommerce is that it integrates seamlessly with dozens of payment services and gateways.
By default, it supports PayPal and Stripe out of the box. However, you can use dozens of other payment gateways through addition. In addition, there are integrations available for some lesser-known and regional payment gateways.
Now let’s take a look at what you need to make a WooCommerce powered online store.
What Do You Need to Make a WooCommerce Store?
You will need the following three items to make a WooCommerce website from scratch.
A WordPress hosting account is where all your website files will be stored.
A domain name. That is your website’s address on the internet, e.g., wpbeginner.com.
An SSL Certificate securely accepts online payments.
The above items are not free and cost money. Often beginners ask if WooCommerce is free and why I need to pay for these things.
You need to pay for these three things to build any website (not just WooCommerce).
The overall cost of your online store (WooCommerce pricing) will depend on which services you choose to purchase for your website. You can easily control the costs by only purchasing what you need.
Remember, you can add other things later as your business starts making money. Usually, web hosting costs $9.95 / month for a starter site, a domain name $15.00 per year, and an SSL certificate from $60.00 per year.
Now that we have covered the basic WooCommerce requirements, let us see how to set up WooCommerce with step-by-step instructions.
Step 1. Getting Started with WooCommerce
First, you need to visit maddog. domains
Next, you will be asked to select a plan for your hosting account. Premium plans are popular among many users, and remember, you can always upgrade to get more resources later when you need them.
Select a plan
Click to select a plan and continue.
After that, you will be asked to register a new domain name or use an existing domain name that you already own.
Next, you set up a Domain Name.
Here are some quick tips on choosing the perfect domain name for your WooCommerce store.
- Use keywords in your domain name. For example, if you want to sell gardening supplies, use it in your domain name as a keyword.
- Use your brand name in your domain name.
- Stick to com.au extension or what is local to your country.
- Do not use numbers or hyphens in your domain name. This makes them hard to pronounce and spell.
Choosing the right domain name for your business is essential, but do not overthink it; otherwise, you will never get beyond this step.
Once you have chosen a domain name, click on the next button to continue.
You will be asked to provide account information and finalise the plan details.
After that, fill in your credit card information and click on the submit button to complete the purchase.
Below that, you will see optional extras. We recommend unchecking all of them as they will increase your costs. But, of course, you can always add them later. Once you have made the payment, you will get an email with details to log in to your web hosting dashboard. The dashboard is where you will manage your website.
Step 2. Setting up WooCommerce and WordPress
Mobilise Solutions offers WooCommerce and WordPress, the services we provide our customers when we build your website and eCommerce store.
Before we install WooCommerce, let us first set up basic WordPress settings.
Go to the Settings page in the WordPress admin area, change your website’s title, and optionally provide a tagline (description).
Mobilise Solutions will automatically install an SSL certificate for your domain name. Make sure that your website URL is showing HTTPS and not HTTP.
If it shows HTTP, you need to see our guide on enabling SSL in WordPress.Next, you need to review the website admin email address. This email address is where you will receive WooCommerce notifications and password reset requests, so make sure that it is correct.
After that, scroll down a little and select the time zone settings for your website. Now, you can review all the settings once again and click on the Save changes button to save them.
When that is all done, you are now ready to install WooCommerce.
Step 3. How to Properly Install and Setup WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, so the installation process is like any other WordPress plugin.
Go to Plugins » Add New page in your WordPress admin and search for WooCommerce. WordPress will now show plugin search results. Next, click on the ‘Install now’ button next to WooCommerce.
WordPress will now take the plugin files and install WooCommerce for you. Once finished, click on the ‘Activate’ button to start using it.
After activation, WooCommerce will launch the WooCommerce setup wizard. First, select your store location, currency, and what type of products you want to sell.
After that, click on the let us go button to continue.
In the next step, choose a payment method. By default, WooCommerce supports PayPal and Stripe payment gateways.
You can click the toggle to enable these payment methods and provide your email address to set them up.
Alternatively, you can turn them off and set them later by visiting the WooCommerce » Settings page and switching to the Payments tab.
Next, set up shipping. You can select free shipping or add flat shipping costs for different zones.
Click on the continue button to move along.
Now you will be asked to install recommended services for WooCommerce. We recommend you uncheck all of them and install them later when you need them.
Next, install the Jetpack plugins. You can scroll down to the bottom and select Skip this step. There are better and more powerful alternatives that we will discuss later.
WooCommerce setup wizard will now save all your settings; you are now ready to start selling.
Step 4. Adding Products in WooCommerce
WooCommerce makes it easy to add products to your store.
Go to the Products » Add New page to add your first product.
First, provide a title for your product and then a detailed description.
Then, click on the ‘Add new product category’ link in the right column. You can create a new category for the product you are adding.
Categories allow your customers to browse products on your website easily.
After that, you need to scroll down a little to the ‘Product Data’ box. This is where you will select the product type and add product pricing, shipping, and other information.
Next, you will see a product short description box. The description will be used on different product pages on your website. You need to add a catchy and informative short description that helps you get more clicks.
Nothing makes a product page more useful than product images. WooCommerce makes it super simple to add product images and even product image galleries to go along with each product.
First, you need to add the main product image. This will be the main product image used on the shop pages across your store.
Below that, you can add multiple images to create a product image gallery.
Review all the product information you have added when you have done the image gallery. If everything looks alright, you are ready to make this product live in your store.
Click on the Publish button at the right top box on the screen to publish your product.
You can now repeat the process to add more products to your website.
Step 5. Choosing a WooCommerce Template & Theme
There are thousands of online stores competing to sell similar products. So, choosing a professional design for your store makes a big difference in how customers see your brand. We have our favourite themes we use when setting up a fast store, giving you plenty of options to customise to make it your own and allow you to keep your store up to date.
There are thousands of WooCommerce templates and themes available on the market. While you can use WooCommerce with any WordPress theme, we recommend choosing a WooCommerce-ready theme.
These themes are made specifically for WooCommerce websites, and they will help you make more sales on your website.
Since there are thousands of paid and free WooCommerce themes on the market, this abundance of choices can make it difficult for beginners to choose the perfect design.
To make this easier, we have hand-picked the best WooCommerce ready theme that you can use. All of these are mobile-friendly and highly optimised for SEO and performance.
When we, Mobilise Solutions, build sights, we use X Pro. It is easy to use and flexible.
What to look for in a WooCommerce theme?
Looking at all these professionally made WooCommerce themes, you may be wondering how to choose a suitable theme for your business?
Following are just some essential tips that you can use as a guideline.
- Strive for simplicity in design. A clean and straightforward design helps customers focus on what is essential and improves conversions.
- Test your selected theme on mobile. Most users access the internet from mobile devices, ensuring that the piece you choose looks great on smaller screens.
- Only download themes from WordPress.org themes directory or reliable commercial theme shops. Themes from unreliable sources may have hidden malware that could ruin your business.
- Check reviews and ratings to avoid any red flags.
Step 6. Installing WooCommerce Extensions and Addons
The real power of WooCommerce comes from powerful extensions and addons. These addons work precisely like a WordPress plugin, and you can install them like you would install any other WordPress plugin.
There are thousands of plugins available for both WooCommerce and WordPress. You can use them to create contact forms, make a landing page, add pricing tables, gift cards, etc.
Here are our top picks for must-have WooCommerce plugins for any eCommerce store.
- Gravity Forms allows you to easily create contact forms, customer surveys, customer login forms, and more.
- Rank Math Pro allows you to install Google Analytics and track your top products, categories, and landing pages. See where your customers are coming from and what they do on your website.
- TrustPulse– This allows you to utilise the power of social proof and FOMO to win customer trust and generate more sales instantly
- RafflePress– Helps you run viral giveaway campaigns to promote your WooCommerce store.
- PushEngage– Helps you connect with visitors after they leave your website through web push notifications.
Step 7. Resources to Grow WooCommerce Store
Whoo-hoo, Your WooCommerce store is up and running, and it is time to start promoting your WooCommerce store and grow your business.
Here are some resources to help you learn WooCommerce and grow your online store like an experienced pro.
- Start an Email List
More than 90% of people visiting your WooCommerce store will leave without making a purchase. Unfortunately, that means a loss of money.
Therefore, building an email list is extremely important for online store owners.
An email list allows you to give customers a chance to stay in touch with you without buying anything. It will open a direct line of communication between you and the customers, so you can try and convince them to make a purchase.
The good part is that WooCommerce integrates with all email marketing services globally, including Constant Contact, Sending Blue, Drip, and thousands more.
- Generate More Leads
Everyone who subscribes to your email list is a potential lead/customer. Therefore it’s best to offer website visitors multiple options to join your email list. This practice is called lead generation.
Most store owners only add a basic email signup form to their store, which hurts your overall conversion.
In marketing, a conversion is an action taken by your website visitor in response to your call to action (CTA).
Conversions can take many forms. For example, when visitors subscribe to your email list, that is a conversion. When they grab free trial signup, that is also a conversion. And when they buy a product after seeing your CTA, that is a conversion.
- Track WooCommerce Users
Ecommerce stores need marketing data to make informed decisions. This data includes where your visitors are coming from, which products are popular, which products are not doing so well, etc.
These insights help you make data-driven decisions and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.
Rankmath Pro Plugin helps you quickly make sense of your data using Google Analytics.
- Learn WooCommerce SEO
SEO or Search Engine Optimisation helps you get more visitors to your WooCommerce store from search engines.
WooCommerce itself is very SEO-friendly out of the box, but you can do so much more.
- Recover Abandoned Cart Sales
Once a customer adds a product to their cart, there is a 60-80% chance of leaving without completing the purchase. That is an average from all eCommerce websites, and it could be even higher.
Many eCommerce site owners ignore this metric initially, which is pretty much-leaving money on the table.
It will give you a good head start and will help improve your overall sales.
- Remind Users of Cart Items with Exit-Intent Popup
- Make Cart Visible and Noticeable
- Avoid Hidden Cost Surprises
- Enable Guest Checkout without Account Creation
- Make Checkouts Faster
- Offer Multiple Payment Methods
- Effectively Use Urgency and Scarcity Tricks, limited stocks, limited time discount offers.
- Use FOMO to Discourage Cart Abandonment, fear of missing out.
- Allow Users to Save Their Cart
6. What Kind of Products I can sell with WooCommerce?
You can sell any product with WooCommerce, whether they are physical goods (products that require shipping), digital downloads (eBooks, software, digital art), or even subscriptions. So, you can see why every business owner should be online with eCommerce.
- What are some WooCommerce alternatives?
WooCommerce is flexible and easy to use, but it may not always be the right solution. Depending on your needs, you may find some other solutions more suitable.
- Can I use WooCommerce for Dropshipping?
Yes, you can. WooCommerce is the #1 choice to make a dropshipping website. Several excellent WooCommerce dropshipping plugins allow you to easily handle orders, manage vendors, and automate the whole process.
- Can I add a blog in WooCommerce?
The answer is Yes. Your WooCommerce store runs on top of WordPress, which is already the best blogging platform in the world. So, all you need to do is create a separate blog section and start writing posts.
- Can I change my WooCommerce store name?
You can change your store name by visiting the Settings » General page in the WordPress admin area. Then, change the title to whatever you want to call your store.
However, if you want to change the domain name of your WooCommerce store, then that is a slightly different process.
- Where is my WooCommerce login information?
You do not have a separate WooCommerce login for the admin area because WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin. To login to your WordPress dashboard, use the WordPress login.
However, your customers will have a WooCommerce login to log in to their account area to keep track of orders.
- How can I get WooCommerce support?
Since WooCommerce is free software, limited WooCommerce support is available through WordPress community forums and the official WooCommerce website.
Most WooCommerce support will be by your WooCommerce Provider or the WooCommerce theme and extension developers.
For custom WooCommerce development and customisation work, you can hire a WordPress Developer from a trusted company like Mobilise Solutions.
Even if you do not want to do it yourself, mobilise Solutions builds beautiful, functional, and affordable eCommerce sites for our customers like you. Send us a message if you would like to find out more.
That is all, and we hope this WooCommerce guide helped you learn how to set up WooCommerce and make an eCommerce store.