With the rise in digitalisation, starting a business has always been challenging. However, today you can find everything you need within clicks to enhance the chances of success for your business. So building an online company that sells products online is plausible for one and all today.
And this is why if you want to start a new venture and make it productive, it is ideal to build an ecommerce site with Joomla CMS. So, how to launch your online store using Joomla? Let’s find out!
Why Use Joomla for eCommerce?
When starting an eCommerce store, one critical aspect is that you can operate your business smoothly and easily. While creating a website from scratch, there may be bugs or delays, but you won’t face those issues with Joomla. That’s why various big brands use Joomla to create their strong online presence.
Besides, Joomla has a vast library of templates, extensions, and plugins that can help you with various functionalities on your website.
Moreover, you also get access to the community of users and forums that have been using it for years. Thus, you can get maximum support when you feel stuck anywhere.
Factors to Keep in Your Mind While Building An eCommerce Website Using Joomla
When creating an eCommerce website, you will have to integrate various other systems to provide a seamless shopping experience to your prospects. The cost of building your website on Joomla involves these below-mentioned factors you must pay attention to.
An SEO Plan
SEO is a key to any online business, including e-store. So it is highly critical to optimise your website for SEO in Joomla to boost conversion and SERP ranking.
But it is not easy as the search-engine bots keep getting smarter daily. Some of the common SEO strategies that can help improve visibility of your online shopping site are:
- Enable SEF URLs or URLs that are search-engine friendly.
- Enable URL rewriting from the Joomla SEO settings to remove the redundant index.php.
- Remove the IDs from your URL by going to the Integration tab.
Here are a few top SEO extensions for Joomla SEO optimization:
Optimal Hosting
Before choosing the domain name, selecting an ideal web hosting for the Joomla digital store is critical. Great hosting primarily depends on three factors, speed, security, and support. Therefore, you should consider these factors while choosing a web hosting provider.
Domain Name
Choosing the website name is not as simple as it sounds; it requires sound strategy and effort to ensure optimal results. The domain name should be in sync with the brand. Besides, make sure to choose a domain name that relates to keywords. It will help you with a handy search engine impetus resulting in better conversion.
Furthermore, having a brandable name helps in your long-term business goals. You can’t change your domain or brand name once you start growing. Hence, here remember these key aspects while choosing a domain name.
- It should be related to the product or brand.
- Always choose a short name that is easy to remember.
- Keep the domain name unique and avoid any unwanted characters.
Suitable Extensions
The Joomla online store completes with the shopping cart extension to help the customers in quicken the check out process. Below are some useful extensions that you can use for the Joomla online store.
VirtueMart is considered one of the most loved eCommerce extensions on Joomla. It is open-source and straightforward to customise.
J2Store is another free Joomla extension that provides a plethora of features. It helps users with special access to change the website without deep knowledge of CSS or HTML.
EShop is a responsive and powerful extension with many valuable features and is customisable and user-friendly.
HikaShop is another powerful extension that comes with innumerable possibilities. It is simple and flexible, and this makes it ideal to use.
redSHOP is a popular extension in the Joomla CMS with built-in templates to style the online store per your requirements.
Loading Speed
Page loading speed helps you improve your website’s overall SEO rankings. Furthermore, a fast-loading website is also visitor friendly. If not, your users might leave the website without making any purchase. With the below-given steps, you can speed up your eCommerce website with Joomla.
- Ensure that you are using a seamless web hosting service.
- Make sure to regularly update the Joomla and the extensions to the latest version.
- Besides, delete the extensions that you are not using.
- Use Joomla caching to reduce the page load time significantly. The stored and cached data helps load content faster whenever the user will revisit the page.
- You can also use GZIP compression to download your pages as ZIP files and unpack them in the browser. It helps in reducing the content size by 50-70%.
- Optimise the images on your website.
Starting With the Joomla Website Creation
Now that you have picked and decided on the domain, hosting template, and other features, it is time to start. It is always advisable to install Joomla and the template together. Then, as you select the template, you can get your Joomla eCommerce website up and running quickly. Refer to the Joomla documentation or support for detailed guidance and assistance.
The J2 Dashboard
If you are looking for the central area of your digital store, the J2 dashboard is the place. It helps you in monitoring different KPIs, statistics, and orders. Moreover, it also gives your reports on the latest orders by the customers
The Product Page
With this page’s help, you can view the details of your product within a simple, compact view while also monitoring its state. Moreover, you can use the “New” button to add new products or remove existing products from the page. It also allows you to go to the inventory page to view or edit the product inventory.
The Orders Page
You can check all your customers’ ongoing and existing orders through the orders page. Using this, you can connect and coordinate with the delivery system. Moreover, you will also be able to build new orders with this page.
Final Thoughts
Joomla is a great eCommerce tool that can help you achieve your sales goal through creative and efficient ideas. It is extensible and offers you a host of benefits for higher flexibility. Moreover, the various extensions for creating the web store make it even better.
Most functionalities are already built-in, so you will not rely significantly on different third-party codes. So, what are you waiting for? Scale your eCommerce store to new heights today with Joomla!
