Ultimate Ecommerce Kickstart Program - Development Edition

There are so many options available to us when it comes to the tech required to build and run a successful online store. In this lecture, we will explore all the different options, and explain why it is that we build our own online stores on the exact tech stack that we use in this program.

A step by step guide on setting up a high-performance tech environment for your store. We will cover registering a domain, routing through Cloudflare, setting up a super fast server, and setting up a Google Workspace account (optional).

Learn all the components that define what a Brand is. Discover the importance of colour psychology. Learn how to design an attractive logo with Canva and Photopea.

In the Branding & Logo Design lecture, we briefly cover using Photopea for editing your logo. In this lecture, we go more in-depth on how to use Photopea.

You are going to be building your store on a highly customized, conversion-centric Blueprint developed by our team of ecommerce experts. In this lecture, we will go step by step through the process of setting up your Blueprint.

We are using Google Workspace primarily for email hosting, but will surely also take advantage of the rest of the wide range of wonderful office and productivity applications available to us as part of our Google Workspace subscription. In this lecture, we're going to take a quick walkthough through the app suite. Then we'll set up 'Less Secure Apps' which is a setting we will be depending on later on when we do Advanced Email Routing on our stores.

This is an introduction to the WordPress & Woocommerce environments we will be working in to build and run your online store.

Over the next three lectures, we will be doing some initial setup on WordPress & Woocommerce, starting with:

• Updating plugins

• Reconfiguring SSL

• Setting up security email alerts

• Setting up malware screening

• Setting up backups

• General settings including Store Name, Slogan, and Administrator email address

• Defining the Woocommerce Store Address

There's no point in investing time on email marketing (covered later in this program) if you have no guarantee that your mails will hit the inbox (not spam) every time. In this lecture, we will show you how to set up Advanced Email Routing to make sure your customers always receive your marketing content.

There are two types of mails you will be sending. Transactional email and Marketing email. Transactional email is mail like new account notifications, password resets, order confirmations, payment confirmations, etc. Marketing emails pretty much cover everything else including abandoned cart reminder mails and newsletters. In this lecture we will be setting up and customizing your store's automated transactional emails.

It's time to get started with the actual design of your store. We'll kick off with an introduction to Flatsome and the various editing environments we will be using. From there we will get the first part of your store design done: the header.

In this short lecture we will be modifying your store's footer using the WordPress Customizer, the Appearance Widget Editor, and the UX Blocks builder.

Learn how to start making your site your own by customizing storefront colors, button styles, and typography to make the look and feel your own.

We're going to get started with your homepage layout in this module. In order to do so, we need to create some sample products and menus. Once we are done with that, we will be able to see how assignment of products to "Special Categories" determines where products appear on your homepage.

We're ready to start customizing your store and giving it the look and feel you want. In this lecture, we're going to dive a little deeper into how the UX Builder works. Then, we'll explore different options for you to consider when designing your banners and other homepage content.

Flatsome Studio is one of the most advanced template galleries available. Best of all, it's purpose-built for ecommerce. We're super excited to present this lecture to you in which we start exploring the endless possibilities that Flatsome Studio has to offer. This is where your store truly starts coming alive.

In this lecture, learn how to correctly set up your supporting pages.

The default supporting pages in the Blueprint are:

• Terms & Conditions

• Payment Methods

• Delivery & Returns

• Privacy Policy

• About

• Support

• Contact

The payment methods (and by extension which payment gateways) to make available on your site has several important implications on your conversion rate, customer service, and overall profitability. This lecture explains everything you need to consider when choosing a payment gateway, and provides an introduction into the top payment gateways you should be considering.

Learn how to set up the default currency of your store as well as the first fundamental payment options.

This is a tutorial on how to set up PayPal as a payment option. Please check if this payment option supports your country and store default currency before proceeding.

This is a tutorial on how to set up Stripe to accept credit/debit cards. Please check if this payment option supports your country and store default currency before proceeding.

Live Chat is possibly one of the most importance competitive advantages you can have. It can be used as a powerful sales tool to increase your conversion rates by up to 30%.

Keeping your store in tip top shape and following a routine communication cadence with your customers will help you run your store in the best way possible. Follow this checklist as a guideline to get started.

Learn how to easily display your most recent Instagram posts on your homepage.

Learn how to create blogs, set up your blog page, and display your most recent blogs on your homepage.

Learn about 4 different product sourcing options, how they differ, and important considerations you need to take when deciding on where and how to source products for your store.

We're ready to start adding products to our stores. As you know by now, there are various product sourcing options for you to consider. In this lecture, we will explain how to integrate Aliexpress with your store, and how to import products. Even if you are not planning on using Aliexpress, all of the theoretical aspects of this implementation will apply to other suppliers too, so please do follow this module and implement with us.

Learn how to implement integrated shipment tracking into your store for a seamless tracking experience for your customers.

Learn how to create an amazing customer experience by implementing marketing automation into your store. These amazing techniques are guaranteed to increase your customers' experience of your store, and by extension, your conversion rate.

We are now going to implement our marketing automation right from within Woocommerce using a wonderful piece of software called AutomateWoo. No need for expensive third-party autoreponders or CRMs. No need for technical integration between third-party software and your store. Everything is set up and executed right from your WordPress dashboard.

In this advanced lecture, we set up some amazing tech right from within your WordPress dashboard, that is responsible for handling newsletter subscriptions and contact forms. This is a long lecture, so please make sure you can give yourself at least 90-120 minutes of uninterrupted time to complete it. Enjoy!

This lecture provides a high-level overview of the 4 Google services we need to set up, namely Search Console, Analytics, Merchant Center, and Ads. A pre-requisite for setting up Search Console is to have sitemaps enabled, which we do by means of a simple automatic SEO configuration.

Learn how to set up Google Analytics the right way using Google Analytics Pro for Woocommerce.

In this bonus module, learn how to display high-level Google Search Console and Google Analytics data directly on your WordPress dashboard.

As an introduction to marketing on Google, we need to set up Google Merchant Center - the Google service we use to manage our product feeds. This is a mandatory requirement for running Google Shopping Ads. In this lecture, we explain how to set up your product feeds correctly, and how to take advantage of Google's Enhanced Free Listings program.

This is an introductory marketing lecture in which we go through the process of setting up a basic Google Shopping Ads campaign. Please note that this Kickstart Program is a development program. It's primary focus is on building your store, and not marketing. So please consider this particular lecture as a marketing fundamentals lecture only. A campaign such as the one we set up in this lecture is one of the campaigns you should use as part of an entire marketing mix (outside the scope of this course), and not exclusively as your means of generating traffic to your store.

A fast website can be the difference between success and failure. And with the huge move from desktop to mobile that we are continuing to see, speed is more important today than ever before.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a very important part of your total marketing mix. SEO should be seen as a long term strategy, and whilst results from your SEO optimization efforts may take time to bear fruit, by the time they do, you'll be glad you took the time to include SEO as part of your overall strategy.

This is a brand new module that is being added to the program and will be available on August 9, 2021. In the interim, here is some sample content to get an idea of what is in store.

This is a brand new module that is being added to the program and will be available on August 9, 2021. In the meantime, here is some sample content to give you a taste of what's in store.