When you’re launching a Magento eCommerce website for your business, there are two steps you need to take: firstly, build your site to attract the attention of potential customers and achieve a high volume of inbound web traffic; and secondly, arrange a Magento hosting plan with a reputable provider.

Ecommerce platforms, such as Magento, give online retailers a visible presence in their marketplace, enabling them to stay ahead of their rivals and build a base of loyal customers. How do you go about building your Magento eCommerce website?

The first step is to choose a template for your website that matches the theme you have chosen for your business. The template is a skeleton around which you will develop the site, and there are many to choose from on Magento. While selecting a template comes down, to some degree, to personal taste, it is important that you observe some simple guidelines:

• Evaluate the websites of similar eCommerce businesses that use Magento to gain insight into their chosen themes, observing the structure and layout of the pages.
• Decide what information you wish to include on your website and how it will be arranged. Sketching a plan of your desired layout can be useful
• Choose a template that matches the layout or is as similar as possible. Remember that images, colours, and labels can all be changed.
• Your chosen template must be available as an optimised version for mobile devices and compatible with all browsers.

Once you have downloaded and installed Magento (the Magento Installation Assistant will simplify this process), you will need to install your chosen template. There are different ways to complete this: the theme documentation for your chosen theme will provide more detail.

Configuring the appearance of your online store is essential to ensure it is unique to your eCommerce business and reflects your company ethos and aspirations. You can configure the site from the content section, where items such as pages, widgets, blocks, and posts can be found in the sub-menu for editing. Other options, such as the header and footer, can also be configured from here.

No knowledge of coding is required to configure your online shop!

Adding products to your online store is straightforward with Magento which, given that you can’t have a store without them, is a good thing!

To add a product, go to Products > Catalog > Add product.

Here you will be able to add product details, images and videos, and keywords and metadata for search engine optimisation (SEO).

For a detailed product listing, you can configure pricing, inventory, related products, up-sells, cross-sells, and custom options from the Advanced Settings tab.

A completed online should never be a static resource but should evolve over time in response to customer interactions and engagement, and product sales.

Once you have completed Magento eCommerce website development, analyse (and act on) feedback and insights, add additional sections, provide links to social media, and keep tabs on your SEO to ensure your site is receiving the inbound traffic it deserves.

MDOQ is the leading Magento management platform for the creation, deployment, and configuration of eCommerce sites.

To find out more about our Magento hosting, please get in touch today.

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