How to use Weebly to build a website: Step-by-step guide

Weebly is a popular website builder that offers ecommerce functionality, along with the tools you need to create a functional, attractive site quickly and easily.

With a user-friendly platform and a range of easy-to-use functions and features, Weebly is a great way to get online. Offering a range of ecommerce tools, even on its free plan, Weebly is one of the best options for new businesses trying to sell online.

In this article, we’ll provide a step-by-step guide for getting your own Weebly website started.

Step 1: Sign up to Weebly

The first step in getting started with Weebly is to create an account with them. Visit their site and sign up for an account. If you want more information before getting started, you can visit our Weebly ecommerce website builder review.

Of course, you will need to decide which plan you want to choose, and even whether Weebly is the right choice for you. If you want some tips for choosing an online store builder, you can visit our best ecommerce website builder page.

If you don’t plan on building an online store, you might want to check out our best website builder page.

Once you have confirmed that you want to go with Weebly, and have chosen one of their plans, it’s time to finalise your sign-up.

Bear in mind that you’ll also need to decide on your online brand name at this point; take a look at our how to choose a domain name page for more advice.

Step 2: Choose a template

Once you have an account with Weebly, it’s time to choose a template for your site.

At this stage, it’s important to think about your brand. What sort of audience do you have? What sort of audience are you expecting to have? What industry do you operate in and what products do you sell?

Thinking carefully about these considerations will help you to decide on the template that suits you. Consider the functions and features you need to have on your site, as well as the ones you would like to have that aren’t essential.

If you’re not sure what you need from your site, it might be worth creating a business plan; this sort of document can help a lot when it comes to deciding your business priorities.

Fortunately, Weebly offers a range of pre-designed, professional templates that should provide a good starting point for most websites. Browse through the options they have and select the one that best aligns with your values and goals.

Step 3: Customise your website

The template you chose in the section above is the foundation for your site, but with Weebly, you can customise it to make it even more suitable for your business.

Weebly’s drag-and-drop editor enables you to modify elements of your website easily, whether that’s to move sections around a little or to completely replace whole sections.

From page headlines to fonts, colours and images, you have the freedom to completely tailor your website’s appearance.

Take time to experiment with the editor to find out what works best. It might be worth sharing ideas with friends, family or colleagues at this point to get their input on how things should look.

Step 4: Add and manage content

Whatever type of website you plan to launch, content is likely going to be at its heart.

Weebly allows you to easily create and manage pages, blog posts, galleries and other types of content. You can add text, images, videos and other interactive elements using the drag-and-drop editor.

The pages, posts and galleries you create can be managed and organised into sections too, to make it easier for users to find them.

Step 5: Add products

As an ecommerce website builder, Weebly allows you to add products to your website.

For anyone launching an online store, this is vitally important. With Weebly, you can add products and also categorise them into specific groups. This ability will make it easier for you to navigate the products you are selling, but will also allow visitors to your site to find related products.

For the products themselves, remember to add titles, product descriptions, prices and high-quality images to make sure that potential customers find all the information they might need.

Step 6: Optimise for search engines

Now that you have content and products on your site, it’s time to make sure that people can find you.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving your content so that it will appear in the search results on sites like Google. There are a range of processes and techniques that go with SEO but, in a nutshell, it’s about using the right terms and building a positive user experience so that your customers can find what they are looking for.

Step 7: Install apps and plugins

Weebly offers a variety of apps and plugins that can enhance the functionality of your website.

These tools can allow you to integrate features such as contact forms, social media feeds and, as mentioned, ecommerce capability.

Once you are comfortable with the basics of using your Weebly site, you should explore the App Center to find out what other options are available to you.

Step 8: Market your website

SEO isn’t the only form of website marketing to consider. There are a range of options available for any business hoping to drive even more traffic and sales.

Email marketing is a great option for ecommerce websites. As you sell products, you will be collecting contact information from users. Make sure that email addresses are a part of this contact information process so that you can market to old customers with new deals in the future.

Social media marketing is another option for businesses of any size. With a range of platforms to choose from, it is possible for any online business to expand its reach to whole new sections of its potential market.

To support the range of marketing opportunities on offer to you, it might be worth investing in customer relationship management (CRM) too, to make sure that you can target correctly and learn from the successes or failures of previous campaigns.

Step 9: Preview and publish your website

With your content on site, your products in the database, and your marketing channels ready to go, it’s almost time to go live.

Before you do, take some time to preview your website to look for any issues at all. This can include visual issues with your templates or designs, or issues within content. Take a look at all of it to make sure you’re happy with how everything works and looks.

Once you’ve completed your checks and feel satisfied, it’s time to go live.

Step 10: Monitor and maintain your website

Creating your Weebly website in the first place is one thing, but ongoing maintenance is an important ongoing step to bear in mind.

Weebly offers a range of analytics tools that will allow you to monitor how your site is running. With the data provided, you can work out what is working, what isn’t working, and how you can make improvements.

Use all of the data available to you to make decisions on what sort of content to add to the site, as well as to confirm decisions around your catalogue of products.

How to use Weebly: Final thoughts

Weebly is an excellent option for anyone trying to get an online store running. Offering a huge range of features, templates and functions, without the need for experience in coding or web development, Weebly opens the door to the online world.

By following the steps outlined in the sections above, you can get started with Weebly. Make use of the drag-and-drop functionality and range of easy-to-integrate tools to create a website that reflects your business goals and values.

Bryn Glover

Bryn is the founder and editor of WebsiteJumpStart. He has worked in the digital field for over a decade and was editor for Startups.co.uk - the UK's leading small business website - and for NerdWallet UK before launching WebsiteJumpStart to help people and businesses get online with ease.

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