This blog will just help you with basics of how to own a website. When you start a website, firstly decide on the purpose of starting a website. It can be any of the below reasons
- To start a blog
- To have a portfolio website for artist
- To have a ecommerce website to sell your products
- To have a e-learning website where we can have various subscription based learnings
This blog is majorly related to starting an ecommerce website where anyone can sell their products. But it has many common information for everyone who wants to start a website for any reason
I am no expert in technicality of starting a website. And that’s why I am writing this blog to explain the basics in simple terms. We would require two things for starting a website.
- Hosting
- Domain
In simple terms, Hosting is like a shop to store all the information but it is in the cloud and Domain is like a shop name to name the website
Every hosting providers provide an option to buy domain from them or we can buy them separately as well. Both Hosting and website domains will have offers during November month’s black Friday’s sale
Hosting is provided by various providers like squarespace, godaddy, bluehost, hostinger, shopify, wordpress etc.
Hosting providers for e-commerce website:
For anyone who wants to just start a blog can buy from any hosting providers. For Example, WordPress also provides a free place to start a website blog but the domain ID will have a WordPress name to the end. However, if we want to start an ecommerce website we would require extra features like,
- Downloading bills or invoice to send a product
- Uploading product related information on website like product price
- Providing coupons and offers
- Newsletters
- Providing return or cancel facility
If we need a website hosting with all these above options, we would require one of the below hosting for example
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
What is Shopify and WooCommerce:
Shopify is all in one option which provide both hosting and ecommerce facility in one platform.
And WooCommerce is a plugin which can be installed with any WordPress hosting to start a ecommerce website.
It can be slightly confusing but anyone can design a website with no coding knowledge with just few Youtube videos and with some curiosity 🙂
What is WordPress hosting?
When you google WordPress, there will be two things to looks for, One is we can find their website where we can buy hosting from them directly or the second one is we can buy other hosting where we can just install wordpress panel in it.
WordPress is also a hosting provider and provides a free plan where we can start a blog or website for free. This is ideal for any blogs. We started with this free plan to write a blog.
However if we want to start an ecommerce website, We can buy any hosting that is specialized for ecommerce with WordPress panel installed in it. WooCommerce can be installed in any of the WordPress hosting and not in any other hosting where wordpress cannot be installed
Also WordPress interface panel can be installed with many hosting providers. This link has WordPress suggested hosting providers. WordPress is a back end panel from where we can update products, posts and format our website. One can scale and customize the website look and content using WordPress panel. For example, this site tintsandtoons.com is hosted using Hostinger (Hosting provider). Hostinger provides a business plan where WordPress (To customize the website) is installed and also WooCommerce plugin (to have ecommerce facility) is also installed by default in their hosting.
Difference between shopify and WooCommerce:
One main difference between these two providers is their price structure and the reason for the same. I have used both these platforms free versions and described below the difference between both the platforms.
Shopify:
Shopify is a user friendly hosting for beginners and its comparatively pricier than WooCommerce WordPress hosting.
Shopify has various plans and I tried the starter plan which has a one page website, just to list all the products in one page and it is useful to share them on social media. This plan neither can be customized nor can have multiple pages or menu options.
They have other plans where it has all the features to start a ecommerce website and it is easy for someone who has no idea about what is wordpress or how to build a website. Where as in WooCommerce WordPress hosting, there is a learning curve.
WooCommerce WordPress hosting:
WooCommerce is a plugin which can be installed with any hosting providers who has WordPress installed in their hosting. We use a hostinger WordPress hosting where WooCommerce plugin is already installed.
Challenge with WordPress hosting compared to shopify
WordPress has a learning curve. In an ecommerce website we would require multiple features.
For example to download a pdf invoice, we would require to install a plugin in WordPress. Or if you want a one step login using your google account in your website, then that would need extra plugin to be installed. There are both free and premium plugins which can be installed from WordPress. Similar to this we would require multiple plugins to be installed on the wordpress and this can require a bit of extra research.
It has free themes to use. Theme is nothing but a front end design and look of the website. One can buy themes if they want more aesthetic look. WordPress can be scalable and more customizable.
Conclusion
In Brief, if you have time and curiosity to learn wordpress from youtube, one can start a website with wordpress with lesser cost. But if you have enough budget and you want to focus your energy on other side of the business, then one can start with shopify. The next blog will be about “How to setup Logistics and Payment setup for your website”
Comment down if any questions, Happy reading, By Tints and Toons