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How to Start Building a Magento Site: The Ultimate Guide
May 21, 2021
Mageplat is undeniably one of the world's most popular eCommerce platforms. Magento is chosen by top brands such as Nike, Ford, Samsung, Nestle, Christian Louboutin, and more without hesitation.
And of course, their decisions are proven to be smart as the Magento eCommerce platform allows them to build a powerful and scalable eCommerce website that can change the entire look and feel of the site the way they want.
If you are new to eCommerce, getting started with Magento may not be as simple as with solutions such as WordPress, Shopify, OpenCart, or BigCommerce.
Yes, trust us. Magento is not that easy, it is considered a sophisticated eCommerce platform out of others, and requires more technical or coding expertise to work on it.
As you know Magento is the most preferred platform by large enterprises due to its flexibility, capability, and scalability to grow the business in the international market.
If you proceed with the Magento, you will get a completely customized, multilingual, and SEO optimization-ready eCommerce website or store that will let you grow in all areas of your business.
But if you choose to build a Magento store using a template, it will not be as difficult you think. Well, in this blog, you will learn how to start building a Magento site through step-by-step guides.
Step 1: Choose a Magento theme
If you are still reading this blog, it means you have already decided that Magento is a perfect eCommerce solution for your business. Well, now that you have to choose the best Magento 2 theme to start building a Magento site with a ready-made professional design.
Magento themes offer more than just ready-made UIs. Many leading Magento development companies offer the top-rated Magento themes and templates that create an immersive user experience with various niche-related extensions and UX-boosters. Consider the following features while choosing a perfect Magento theme for your business.
- A variety of ready-made layouts for Home Page, Gallery and store pages
- Improved navigation, such as MegaMenu, Layered Navigation, etc
- Compatible with all browsers
- Fully responsive
- A modern slider with Parallax
- Blog functionality.
- RTL supported
They all are the important features you should look out for when choosing a powerful Magento theme or template for your business. Do not compromise on any of the above features, as each premium Magento theme delivers almost all features and more to build a robust eCommerce store.
In addition to this, there are lots of modern Magento themes that offer enhanced and fast-loading AMP or accelerated mobile pages. If you find such a theme including the above features, do think more and start immediately to build your Magento site.
Step 2: Prepare for Installation
After purchasing the Magento theme, check out if the theme has any specific hosting or software requirements. To run a Magento store well, you'll need a solid hosting plan with the latest PHP. You may check out the hosting pricing plans offered by the following best Magento hosting providers:
- Bluehost
- HostGator
- Inmotion Hosting
- SiteGround
- A2 Hosting
Other software that you may require, are:
Adobe Photoshop to help you work with .psd sources of your templates as well as imagery and graphics. Moreover, you may also need software, like Adobe Dreamweaver, Sublime Text, Notepad++, etc.
Don't worry: you can set up your site without even touching the code.
Step 3: Installation of Magento and The Template
Now it’s time to get started with creating your Magento site. Visit the Magento Tech Resources page and download the appropriate version of the engine. To do so, you will have to register first, but no worries as it won’t take much time.
To install the engine, you will need to upload the files to the server and create the database. Once you have finished, you can now enter the address of your future website in the browser address bar where you'll see the Magento Installation Assistant.
Magento Installation Assistant will guide you through all installation steps, mentioned below:
Server Readiness Check: If your website is hosted on a modern server, you will be able to immediately move on to the next stage.
Adding a Database: Enter the database details that you have created for your Magento site.
Web Configuration: Now you have to set a specific path to your store’s admin panel to keep it secure.
Customizing Your Store: Choose the time zone, currency, and language for your store.
Creating Admin Account: Enter the details of the store owner.
Installing Magento: Now click on the button “Install Now” and wait for the process to complete.
The next step is to install the template. There is no universal way to do this. Refer to your theme documentation to learn how to install it.
Step 4: Set up Your Store
Go to the Content section and set up or configure the appearance of your Magento store. In the submenu, you’ll see various elements such as Pages, Posts, Widgets, Blocks, Comments, etc. You can add or edit pages, posts, blocks, and so on as per your preference using these items. You can use them to change the appearance of your store and add new content.
You can find the Configure item from the Content menu tab where you can change or adjust various store options, including header, footer, product watermarks, pagination display, and more.
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Step 5: Create New Products
There’s no doubt that products are the key to any online web store. Adding simple products with Magento is pretty easy.
You can add a product, using the below path:
- Navigate to
Products > Catalog > Add Product
- Now fill in the most important product details in the Product Details tab.
- You can add multimedia for the product using the Images and Videos tab.
- Add keywords and metadata of the product through the Search Engine Optimization tab.
Go to advanced settings for detailed configuration of the product where you can add Custom options, Advanced Pricing, Advanced Inventory, upsells, Cross-sells, Related products, Design, and more as per your selection and preferences.
Step 6: More Configurations
Before you make your website live, there are a few things that you should consider. In most cases, your needs depend on the niche and extensions that you use in your web store. There are more configuration aspects of any store, which can't be ignored. During the store configuration, ensure that you consider the following things:
- Links to your social media accounts will allow users to connect with you on the networks they prefer.
- Integrate MegaMenu panels into the top navigation of your website for improving usability
- Your store's blog section needs a few articles. You can always add more later on.
- Expand your clientele by translating your website into new languages through new extensions.
- Update the address of your Google Map and the contact form on your website.
- Set up payment and shipment methods, as well as price and tax rules.
- You need an extension if you wish to extend your loyal customer pool.
Final Thoughts
Thus, building a Magento store doesn’t take much time and effort to use the best Magento theme or template for your business. There’s nothing hard you can’t do and expand the functionality of your Magento store if you think you need it by choosing the advanced configuration options.
In short, it’s pretty easy to build a Magento e-store if you follow the above steps and take care of everything mentioned above. Are you planning to build a powerful Magento store using the best Magento theme for your business? Please do let us know in the comment section below, we would be happy to hear from you.
YOU MADE IT ALL THE WAY
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