Your website is your storefront for the entire world. While many businesses have chosen to stick to social media to promote their services, they could be doing so much more with their own website.
This series will show how easy it is to create your own website tailored to your business, whether you’re a hairdresser, a restaurant, a consulting firm, a photographer, or anything. With our recommendations, you can have your own website up and running quickly, easily, and ready to get customers in.
Today, we’re thinking about small gift shops, whether you’re selling specifically themed products, souvenirs, or anything that you just think is neat.
Getting Started
Before you start to build your website, think about what you want to put on it. Do you want to sell all your stock online? Are you just listing when you’re open? Do you already have your stock available on eBay or Etsy and want to link to those?
Your website can be all of these things, and once you know exactly how you want your website to work, it’s easy to set it up and get it running.
Because this is for a single site, we recommend buying a good basic package, either our Essential hosting package or our Basic Managed WordPress package. Both of which will give you the space and performance you need without costing too much. If you choose Essential, you’ll need to install WordPress on your package, and if you choose Basic, WordPress will be installed automatically.
Making your site look good
Your website needs to look as good as your shop. Along with pointing people to your physical shop, with opening hours, phone number, and address prominently displayed, you should also make sure your online stock is labelled well, organised nicely, and gives your customers plenty of information. Here are a few themes that’ll help.
StorePress Free
Built for WooCommerce, StorePress is a clean and beautiful theme that gives you plenty of customisation options. Mobile-ready, responsive, and with Google fonts included, there is also a Pro version available that gives you even more options with a single site licence available for $59.
Fastest Shop
Fastest Shop is just what it says — a fast-loading e-commerce theme. You can customise your site, including fonts, colours, and layout, in the free version, and if you upgrade to the Pro version, which is only $30, you get additional plugins, even more customisation, and support.
MeStore Free
With plenty of white space and elegance, MeStore is a clean and responsive theme that’ll give you plenty of options in a good free theme. The pro version also gives you a fixed header, product comparisons, breadcrumbs, and light and dark modes. The pro version is $39 for one site.
Sell your stock
If you’ve sold items through eBay or another platform, you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to set up your own e-commerce site. While there are fees for payment processors, web hosting, and other add-ons, it often works out much cheaper per product than going through a third party vendor.
WooCommerce
The most popular and best-known e-commerce plugin for WordPress, WooCommerce has so many options that you’ll be able to find the right combination to work for your business. Sell your products, patterns, e-books, and more with this powerhouse of a platform. The initial plugin is free, but extensions, such as payment integration, will have additional pricing.
SureCart
A new player in the WordPress e-commerce plugin world, SureCart is just starting out, which might be a great option for anyone who only wants to sell a few things, rather than your entire stock. It lets you easily sort out VAT, has a range of checkout and product features, and has EU compliance built in. It currently has a free tier, with a pro tier coming soon.
Easy Digital Downloads
If you only want to sell digital items online, such as photos, patterns, e-books, or art collections, Easy Digital Downloads might be the right option for you. It makes it easy to sell and release online content, with a wide variety of extensions for even more customisation. The main plugin is free, but extensions have additional pricing, and there are also tiered payment options for adding more features to the main plugin.
Showing Off Your Reviews
You want people to know how great your shop is, right? And customer reviews are a great way to get new customers in. Many review sites have their own scripts to put into your site, but by using a plugin, you can cut down on download times and additional scripts on your site.
WP Tripadvisor Review Widget
Tripadvisor is a great source of reviews for travel destinations. With this widget, you can smoothly add up to 10 Tripadvisor reviews for your business and display them in over 25 pre-designed widget styles with over 40 layouts. The widget is also designed to be SEO friendly and has a dark mode version to match your design.
Social Reviews & Recommendations
Facebook is also great for customer reviews, especially if you’re focusing on more local clientele. With this widget, you can pull reviews from your Facebook page into your website, making it not only easy for your customers to see how people feel about your business, but also getting more customers to your Facebook page.
WP Social Ninja
Integrate your reviews with your social media feeds with this all-in-one plugin. In the free version, you can include Google Place reviews on your site as well as your Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook feeds. Upgrading to the pro version, which is $79 for one year or $198 for a lifetime license, gives you even more review feeds, such as Yelp, Trustpilot, Tripadvisor, and Facebook, and the ability for your customers to message you on WhatsApp and Telegram.
Integrating Social Media
Even if you do have a website, you still want to keep your social media accounts filled with content. Whether it’s your Instagram account, your Facebook page, or your YouTube channel, your social media accounts are vital to your business. These three plugins will help you easily integrate them into your WordPress site.
Spotlight
Instagram is a fantastic way to introduce people to your shop, but it’s also a locked-in system, making it difficult for anyone who doesn’t have an Instagram account to see your work. With Spotlight, you can easily integrate your Instagram feed into your WordPress site, not only pointing your customers to your Instagram account but also giving you an easy way to show off your work.
Smash Balloon Plugins
Smash Balloon has produced separate plugins for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, giving you a convenient way to integrate specific social media accounts into your site. Each plugin costs $49 for a year and will give you a fast and smooth integration with your personal feed.
Feed Them Social
But if you want to show off all your social feeds across your site, Feed Them Social lets you put in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube feeds onto your site, along with Follow buttons to make it even easier for your customers to find you. It’s $50 a year for the premium version, but the free version does come with a lot of features.
So there are some options for your website. Whether you’re selling craft supplies, books, kitchen supplies, souvenirs, toys, or anything, having a well-built and detailed website is a great way to get your name out there and introduce people to your store.
If you ever have any questions about how a website can help your business, get in touch with us! We’re happy to help!
