It’s hard not to fantasise about having your own moneymaking website, but the idea isn’t as unreachable as you might think.

You constantly read about people who build these type of ecommerce websites, earning tens of thousands of pounds each month and you dismiss the idea of that ever being you. Surely they must have spent a fortune, have warehouses full of products or have inhuman website creating superpowers, but in reality it’s a lot easier than you may think.

Sure, you may not become a millionaire over night, but you could earn a significant amount of income from a website. With the amount of tools available at your fingertips, you’ll find with a little bit of time and effort nothing is impossible. Below I go through the 5 main steps of how to set up a successful moneymaking website.

1. Find a niche

If you haven’t already got one in mind, the first step is to find a sizable niche. You will want to be specific as possible here and choose one that has a significant audience. For example, don’t just target broad keywords such as “Sunglasses” or “Watches”. Instead, you can target keywords such as “Handmade wooden watches for women” or “Handmade Bamboo sunglasses for men”. This will filter down the amount of people you are targeting, but your content will be much more relevant. The Google AdWords Keyword Planner is very helpful with this.

2. Dropshipping

What is dropshipping you ask? Well, this is the easiest way for you to sell and ship products. You won’t need to have a warehouse full of stock, package any of your orders or even ship them to you customers. Your suppliers literally do everything for you!

Finding the right supplier is key. When looking for suppliers on websites such as aliexpress.com, you’ll need to make sure they have a vast selection of products. Contact them and make sure they offer dropshipping, so they don’t send any of their own branding or advertising on the packaging. Only use two or three suppliers and build a good relationship with them and keep them happy. After all, there will be times when orders will have to be resent or refunded and you don’t want to be swallowing that cost if it isn’t your fault.

3. Choose the right platform for your website

There are many platforms out there that support selling products like Magento or WordPress, but for a dropshipping website, I strongly suggest Shopify. It is extremely user friendly and you don’t have to be technically gifted to use it. You also have the ability to send abandoned cart emails; access to advance reporting and have hundreds of amazing plugins to choose from.

The main reason Shopify trumps other Content Management Systems when dropshipping, is because of the plugin Oberlo. This plugin connects your store with AliExpress. With a few clicks of a button, Oberlo will automatically place all of your orders on AliExpress, saving you from manually entering your customer’s details and ordering each item individually. In addition to this, you can easily import your desired products on AliExpress to your Shopify store, transferring across all of the images, titles and text with a single click of a button. As you can imagine, this saves you a lot of time!

4. The Design

Now you have a clearer picture of the niche you’ll be targeting, found the perfect suppliers and decided on the ideal platform to build your website with, it’s now time to start planning how you want your moneymaking website to look.

As expected, you’ll need to have a very clean and simple looking website with clear call to actions and great imagery. If you’re looking for something quick and easy, Shopify provide hundreds of free and paid templates to choose from. The downside to using one of these is that they have been widely used by thousands of other stores, so your website won’t be very unique at all. If you would want a unique and brandable store, it’s probably best to hirer a web designer who will be able to customise everything to your needs and desires. In addition to this, they’ll also make sure your website is search engine friendly.

Once you’re happy with the design, you can start loading all of your products. Give your customers options by adding a wide variety of products for each category you have. The more products you provide the better! At the bottom of each page, it’s also a good idea to have a “Related Products” or “Other items you may be interested in” area, so when a user lands directly on a product page (and they certainly will when you start advertising), you are inviting them to browse through your other items.

5. Advertising & Social Media

Congrats, you’ve successfully built your moneymaking website! It’s now time to start driving traffic to your store with Social Media and advertising.

Social media has become a big part of companies and storeowners marketing strategy, so it’s definitely a good idea to set up at least Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. Make sure you post regularly and at the best converting times. Experiment with different post types and with different content to see what works best for your target audience and niche.

There are many different advertising channels out there to use, but the best one to start with is probably Facebook. The key to advertising with Facebook is experimenting. Create multiple different Ads with different variations and target different countries. After a while you’ll be able to see what is converting and what isn’t. You’ll also find advertising to certain countries is more expensive compared to others. An extra bonus of advertising your products with Facebook is that you’ll find more and more people will start liking your Facebook page. Your page will go from 0 to over 1,000 likes in no time!

Conclusion

As you can see, the idea of having a successful moneymaking websites isn’t as unreachable as you initially thought. And if you’re not in it for the long haul, many people create these types of startup websites, run them for 2-3 months and sell them for a significant profit on auction websites such as flippa.com.

Let us know in the comments below how you get on with your first moneymaking website. If you need any additional help or want to hire us to design and develop your website, contact us today!

We’re excited to be working with Mortar and Milk. A new Beauty Retail and Bespoke Skin Clinic based in Fulham. They focus on providing a space based on comfort, home and a feeling of calm to their customers whilst providing specialist skincare products and treatments. They sell their products in-store and online via their WordPress WooCommerce website.

We have recently helped to improve the Mortar and Milk website by making many crucial changes. Most importantly we vastly improved their web site speed and usability. We made some changes and added new features such as; Google Analytics, cleaning up plugins and code, fixing broken links and images and redesigning their search function – to make browsing the site more user-friendly.

Just like a real shopping experience, your customers are looking for a place that is well organised, easy to browse and quick to checkout. That means no fuss, no mess and no queues! The exact same principle should be applied to your ecommerce store.

ecommerce is the fastest growing retail market in Europe and North America. Online sales in the UK, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Poland and Spain grew from £132.05 bn [€156.28 bn] in 2014 to £156.67 bn [€185.39 bn] in 2015 (+18.6%). Online sales are expected to grow again to reach £182.80 bn [€216.32 bn] in 2016 (+16.7%) and £215.38 bn [€250.28 bn] in 2017.

Franticly rushing around the shops a few days before Christmas is a thing of the past now that we can do it all online (and sometimes with same day delivery!)

If you would like your online shop to succeed then here are a few key features to include

 

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• Header and Footer →

• Homepage →

• Navigation →

• Products →

• Checkout →

• Integration →

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Header and Footer

Header

You’ll find that, despite design differences, most ecommerce web site design have similar aspects to their headers and footers.

The header is the best place to keep your company logo, navigation and shopping cart at the bare minimum. Other great features to include up here would be a contact number, customer log in link and social media icons.

Footer

The footer however should be where the rest of your important information is kept. Mainly anything you leave out of the header, contact details and address, delivery information, account information, opening times and any links to important pages (FAQ’s, T&C’s) etc..

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Homepage

Your homepage is one of the most important pages of your ecommerce website. It is your storefront and instantly leaves an impression on your potential and returning customers. Keeping this page fresh and up to date is key to thriving in your industry. Remember to keep it tidy, easy to follow, responsive and engaging.

Logo

First of all, lets talk about your company Logo. This is one of the most important parts of any website and your online shop should be no different. Ensure that your logo is always visible, clear and recognisable. Your customers will build up a rapport with you and having an easily recognisable logo will help to strengthen the bond and trust that you share with each other.

Slider

Another design feature that has become popular in ecommerce web site design over the past few years is the image slider. This is a great way for you to showcase some of your top products and achievements. It also livens up your homepage and gives it a nice refreshing look, so your customers are not always peering at the same image. The slider is also a great way to give your homepage a spruce of colour or seasonal feel without changing your theme as the images can be updated quickly and easily.

Featured Products

One great way to share your most popular items is to have a featured products section. This is a good way to show new visitors to your site exactly what kind of items you have to offer. You can use it to display your most popular items, your most recent items or perhaps just your favourite!

Featured Posts

Many online shops have a “Featured Posts” section on their homepage, highlighting either their most recent or most helpful blog posts. This is a really great way for your customers to interact with your company and generally learn more about your brand and values before deciding whether to make a purchase.

Newsletter Sign-Up

One feature that almost all websites (not just ecommerce stores) now have is a newsletter sign up form. This could be anywhere where you want to put it. Some websites include this in the header, at the side of the page, as a simple form somewhere on their homepage or in the footer. This is a great way for your customers to opt-in to hear about promotions and new products etc, rather than having inconvenient pop-ups or intrusive tick boxes during checkout.

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Remember, your homepage is your shop front. If you have anything important to say, here’s the place to say it! Do you offer free shipping over a certain amount, or maybe you’ve got some freebies to give away? Who doesn’t love freebies! You need to let your customers know… so having a banner on your homepage to highlight these will really make a difference.

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Navigation

Menu Structure/Usability

There are many aspects to ecommerce web site design navigation. The first being the navigation menu itself. This may include links to: product and product category pages, an account or login page, blog pages and a contact page etc.

From a navigation perspective, there are a number of ways your product categories and products can be arranged but one of the most commonly used solutions is the mega menu, which allows you to link to multiple categories or products from the header, reducing the amount of steps needed to reach the product you are looking for. A search bar can make the process of finding your desired product even quicker while the mega menu gives customers who are browsing a nice overview of the items you sell.

If you have a simple website with only a few products, you may not need anything overly complicated. However, if like Amazon you have thousands, then a well thought out and organised menu is important.

Category Pages

The second aspect to consider is the formatting of your category pages i.e how the products are displayed and how easily you can find products relevant to you. Something that can improve the browsing experience of these pages is the inclusion of product filters. For example buttons or drop downs that allow the customer to arrange products on the page by price, colour, material or manufacturer etc.

You may also find it beneficial to include options such as quick view, quick buy, stock status and anything else that you feel will encourage your customer to purchase the item or better inform them about the item.

Search Function

Lastly, you need to consider how a product search bar can benefit navigation and ultimately help your customer find and purchase products more easily.

Depending on what technology/software your ecommerce website is built on, it may be that it comes with a search facility built in. For example Magento provides a basic catalogue search which can be modified with bespoke customisation or plugins.

If you include a search bar on your ecommerce website it is important it works effectively. You don’t want it listing results of red hats if you’ve specifically searched for blue hats! Remember that the search bar is more beneficial to customers who know exactly

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Products

Like with a shop you wouldn’t display a product that is poorly made or damaged, so you shouldn’t on your product pages either!

 

Key Aspects

Some key aspects are: Product name, product code, add to cart, price, specific attributes to the product (size, colour etc..) quantity and stock status. Let’s delve a little further…

The placement of this information is almost always right at the top of the page next to the product image, not hidden down the bottom where it can’t be seen. You want your customers to easily be able to choose which size and colour they require rather than having to scroll down the page or even look on other pages. The easier you make the shopping experience, the more likely your customers are going to checkout and return to the site in future.

The placement of your “Add to basket” button is extremely important as well (you may not think it is, but really, it is!) You want it somewhere that it won’t be missed and somewhere that is easily in your eyesight without searching.

This top section is also a good place to highlight any promotions you may be running i.e. free delivery over a certain amount, buy one get one half price, etc..

Short Description

It’s also highly beneficial to display a short description in this top section, so that your customers can read about the product at a glance but aren’t being drowned in information.

One common mistake to make is having your short description the same as the first paragraph of your long description. Try to switch things up and re-write this section so that is isn’t just repeated further down the page.

Images

Images images images! If you have no images, you’re essentially selling nothing! No-body is going to come into a shop and ask to buy a product if they can’t see it, so why should it be any different online? You should spend the time to make sure all of your products have at least one image. There are several ways to display these, you could have a slider or a light box image grid for example. For a uniform look across your website, try and make sure your images are all the same size and that the products inside the images are positoned within the same borders. Not only does this make the product page look neater, but the category pages and homepage too!

Stock Status

Another important aspect to consider is your stock status. Having some sort of stock level indictor on the front and back end of your website can cut down the admin work your sales team (and stock manager) are going to have to do when a customer places an order. Instead of having your staff spending their valuable time contacting customers to say their item isn’t actually in stock (the conversation goes something like; “But your website said it was in stock” “Well actually, our website says it’s available to order not actually in stock”) A stock indicator (live feed of your actual stock levels) can save you a lot of hassle! It will also help you maintain a good rapport with your customers, the last thing you want to do is disappoint customers with unfulfilled orders.

Tabs

All other information that is important for your products can be easily be displayed in tabs underneath the product image or price etc. Expandable and collapsable accordion tabs can hold lengthy information that may otherwise be overwhelming or create unnecessary distraction. This has become the most common way for ecommerce sites to display any extra information, such as long description, videos, reviews, any additional product need-to-knows and specs, and any downloads.

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Checkout

Add To Bag

There is lots you can do to make sure that your customers can can easily add items to their basket and checkout quickly. Firstly, as mentioned above, when viewing a product make sure the add to basket button is always clearly visible. Also make sure its always clear to the user how many (and what) items are in their basket at all times. A discreet notification that appears when items have been added to the basket may be helpful. A clear indication of the total cost of your basket contents rules out any nasty surprises when the customer reaches the checkout page (Hidden costs are a no no!).

That being said, as soon as your customer has gone through to their basket and clicked “proceed to checkout”, you want to drop all mentions of any other products. There’s nothing more distracting than trying to checkout for items you have already selected and then being prompted to buy more on each page. It can come across as desperate and generally just really annoying.

One-Page Checkout

Many ecommerce stores now offer one-page checkouts, so that your customers can fill in all of their information, any promotional codes, payment card details etc.. all on one page. This cuts down their line so to speak (imagine queuing in a store..) and makes the process a lot smoother for the customer, most likely resulting in them returning to your store in the future.

Payments

Not everyone likes using their card details directly with a website, so integrating with other payment providers such as PayPal or SagePay is almost essential in todays online shopping world.

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Integration

Speaking of integration, we’ve spoken briefly about blogs already but there are several other things you can integrate into your website. You could put your newsletters on their own page, have specific social media sharing icons for each product or page, YouTube videos, podcasts and much more! Your online shop isn’t just about selling your products anymore, it’s about selling your company as a whole.

You can also link up with Google AdWords to bring more visitors to your website and you should definitely also consider linking your website with some form of analytics tracking, so that you can see the behaviour of your customers and learn patterns to interact with them more.

One last but certainly not least feature to integrate is SEO. This is one of the most important features when it comes to your ecommerce website. Metadata, alt tags, links and images can boost your shops visibility and increase your sales orders.

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Need help?

So now we’ve highlighted the top features of your ecommerce website, what’s stopping you setting up shop for yourself?

Still a bit confused or have more question? Don’t worry! We have been designing and creating websites for over 16 years and can help with all your ecommerce website needs. Drop us an email, call or pop in for a chat!

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We have recently been working with London based Luxury British Handbags store Milli Millu, to update their ecommerce checkout page. Instead of spending time going through pages and pages just to get to the end, our aim was to reduce the time the customer spent during this process, whilst following their sophisticated design.

To do this, we incorporated a “One-Step” checkout, which allowed us to pull all of the important information from the previous process and create a newer, quicker and easier to use checkout all on the same page.

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Here at Reactive Graphics we are always working closely with Aurelia Probiotic Skincare to proactively update their Magento ecommerce website with new features. Recently, they asked us update their mobile site with the aim to make the navigation and shopping process easier for their customers, whilst maintaining their high quality and elegant design.

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We are very excited to be re-designing and developing a new ecommerce website for our newest client, Partridges of Chelsea. Located in Duke of York Square, Chelsea and Gloucester Road, Kensington – Partridges are a high end grocer, delicatessen and purveyor of fine wines and spirits. They additionally have a huge range of American groceries, a growing export business for their own label products, a Chelsea flower range, a fine food market every Saturday and an onsite Café.

In 1994, Partridges were awarded their Royal Warrant by Appointment to HM The Queen and in 2015, they were awarded two Family Business United awards, for Retail and Peoples’ Choice respectively.

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