eCommerce Website Building: Where Do I Start?

Building an eCommerce website isn’t something that is really cut and dry. There’s a huge variety of products and services that can either help you get your website where you want it or simply confuse you. It’s also important that you make the right choices upfront so that you don’t end up having to restructure your whole website because of some problem in your design layout. The level of time investment necessary for mastery in many software packages can range from little to a VERY significant amount.

Where you should start greatly depends on what you plan on attempting to do and how deep you’re going to dive in. For a moderately professional, clean looking website without a lot of automation or intensive graphics you can probably get by with some basic knowledge of HTML, ability with a good WYSIWYG editor and an image editing program. On the other hand, if you’re someone that’s looking to build something that will really wow your audience then you might consider spending some major time learning HTML, CSS and PHP or similar languages.

What is a “WYSIWYG” editor?
A WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor is what allows you to get by with minimal knowledge of HTML. Yes, that means you don’t have to know EVERYTHING about HTML to have a decent looking website. When you use a WYSIWYG editor it interprets what you’re doing (inserting an image for example) as being a certain series of HTML tags with attributes and does it for you… Thus, what you see on your screen is what you get. Instead of seeing a bunch of HTML code in text format, you’ll mostly see what will actually show up in your browser once your website is live.

Image editing? What do I need that for?
Okay, let’s be realistic here: If you’re going to make a professional *appearing* website it’s important that you can make some basic, decent looking graphics. There’s a lot of graphics programs that can truly get the job done, but as far as power and flexibility goes I recommend Adobe Photoshop or GIMP (which is free). Both programs are great and if you’re going to learn ANY image editing software I recommend you start with GIMP because of it’s ease of use plus it’s FREE! You can also have your images created by low cost sites such as 99Designs or Fiverr.

There are some SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions for eCommerce out there as well. Some have WYSIWYG editors but most require some programming knowledge. Depending on your needs and skills, a TurnkeyShop eCommerce store can be a great way to easily get started.

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