How to Step into E-Commerce?

Hi guys,

I have had a few successes with affiliate marketing, but I want to move into e-commerce now. I understand that e-commerce is a whole new game. So please guide me.

I am trying to make an e-commerce site for a local business. So I don't know how local seo works. In short here are the questions:

1. What should the TLD be .com or some local country specific tld like .fr .de etc
2. Hosting would be on premium hosts like hostgator, bluehost and what not.
3. For CMS i am thinking of Wordpress with WooCommerce. I've heard its good for small to medium businesses.
4. Content: so this is my problem. This is very different from what I am used. In affiliate marketing we write blog posts on keywords. From my research, e-commerce sites are different. They usually have product description. If that is so, can I just copy the official product description. Like for example, if I have a laptop listed, can I copy its product description from its official page or amazon page?

• My website will have branded items and hundreds of them
• The model I am trying to follow is basically drop-shipping

5. Backlinking: This is another issue. I have ranked affiliate websites with various link building strategies including PBNs. Would they work for an e-commerce site. Would they hurt in the long run? Shall I go all white hat? if so how?

Some of these questions could be out right silly. But please bear with me, and before writing me off as a noob, please provide some guidance ...any resources, articles, would also help.

Thanks

If you're doing e-commerce then why do you care about local seo so much? Are you ONLY selling to one city? This sounds like you're confused.

1. For td, go for .com, .co, .net, but don't really target one country unless you're only targeting that country.

2. Bluehost is awesome.

3. WooCommerce is def. the way to go, especially if you're already familiar with WordPress. It's easy to use, and there are a ton of free and premium themes to help you get launched quickly.

4. I specifically watched a Matt Cutts video that discussed copying product descriptions, and it's not something I would do if I cared about the long-term success of my store. I would rewrite them and do what I can to make them different. The main focus should be on adding to the content description, going over features, making each page like a landing page for each product. But, simple descriptions/specs are fine. I would focus on a blog that discusses the products, common issues with them, common questions, etc.

5. I strongly believe that you should avoid blackhat/PBN links with a store. The reason is because Google takes ecommerce/shopping more seriously, since people are expected to give you sensitive information. I would focus on building a social media presence and getting backlinks from guest blog posts, getting mentioned on authority sites and gaining trust/awareness at the same time.

I am not anti-blackhat so please don't flame me for saying to avoid PBN links and BH methods for your site. But, like I said I would do things more natural and legit for a store. I wish you much success, regardless of what you choose to do!

Content and SMM should be your priority for this site, someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

like the other BHW member said, why are you worrying about local seo? Anyway write original descriptions or spin the original. hosting companies like Bluehost or justhost will throttle your traffic if you are sending too much, so choose wisely. Def use woocommerce with wordpress, that is the way to go

Hi guys, thanks for all the replies. I really appreciate them all. I think I forgot to mention that the online store is targeting only one country at the moment. That is the reason of why I was worried about local SEO. I wll take your advice into consideration. Thanks a lot again

I have an e-Commerce store and I will tell you from my experience to write all the product descriptions yourself with 100% originality. It takes so much longer but if you do it right, the organic traffic that comes in later is worth it.

I used Google Keyword Planner to find the best title for my product with a good amount of monthly searches and checked the competition score in Keywordrevealer. Both of these are free tools but KWR is limited unless you pay more. I then used both those tools to find related keywords and phrases to use in the descriptions and make them look as naturally written as possible. Only copy the dimensions from the original description and use all the other information as a guide to help you write.

Don't forget to do proper SEO on your products and website with proper <H> Tags, Meta Descriptions, ALT Attributes, etc. You can use more free tools like Grammarly and Hemmingway Editor to aid your writing.

I wish you all the best with your website.

nice i m new lonch affilate programe is very help full me