How to Create a Website to Sell Digital Products
Do you want to create a website to sell digital products online? With the right tools, the entire process can be quick and affordable.
With so many e-commerce platforms out there, deciding which one to use to start an online store can be difficult. However, creating your own website gives you control over your e-commerce business.
🔎 In this article, we’ll cover:
Why Sell Digital Products?
In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, selling digital products has become an appealing venture for creative entrepreneurs, artists, and professionals alike. The beauty of digital products lies in their scalability and convenience.
From eBooks and online courses to music and software, the possibilities are endless. If you’re considering entering this dynamic market, creating your website offers a range of benefits that can’t be overlooked.
Low Overhead Costs: Unlike physical products, digital products don’t require manufacturing, storage, or shipping. This translates to higher profit margins.
Global Reach: The internet allows you to reach a worldwide audience without the limitations of a physical store.
Passive Income Potential: Once created, digital products can be sold repeatedly without additional effort, creating a steady stream of income.
Flexibility: You have full control over your product offerings, pricing, and marketing strategies.
Innovation: The digital landscape is ever-changing, offering opportunities for creative and innovative product ideas.
Why Sell Digital Products on Your Own Site?
While there are various online marketplaces and platforms for selling digital products, having your own website offers unparalleled advantages.
Branding: Your website is your digital storefront. It allows you to build a unique brand identity that resonates with your target audience.
Control: You have complete control over the design, user experience, and functionality of your website.
Data Ownership: Selling through third-party platforms means surrendering some control over customer data. With your website, you maintain ownership and can tailor marketing efforts.
💡Learn How to Protect Your Digital Products in WordPress
Customization: Your website allows you to implement advanced marketing tactics, such as personalized recommendations and email campaigns.
Long-Term Investment: Building a website is an investment in your online business’s future. Establishing a solid online presence and growing your customer base over time.
Creating a Website with WordPress
If you decide to create your own website to sell digital products, the best Content Management System (CMS) is WordPress. WordPress powers over 43% of all websites — a testament to its versatility, reliability, and usability.
WordPress’s intuitive interface makes it accessible to users of all skill levels. You don’t need to be a coding expert to build and manage your e-commerce site. The vast WordPress plugin ecosystem makes it easy to enhance the functionality of your site.
Similarly, there’s an extensive range of customizable themes and templates. These themes allow you to design a visually appealing and user-friendly site that aligns with your brand identity. Whether you’re selling digital products or services, you can find a theme that suits your niche.
As your e-commerce business grows, WordPress grows with you. The platform’s scalability means you can easily add new products, categories, and even expand into different markets without overhauling your site. This flexibility is crucial for businesses aiming to achieve long-term success.
Also, with a massive user base and thriving community, WordPress provides ample resources for troubleshooting, learning, and sharing insights. Online forums, tutorials, and documentation are readily available to assist you at every stage of your site-building journey.
WordPress itself is open-source and free to use. While you may incur costs for hosting, domain registration, and premium themes or plugins, the overall investment is well worth it.
Plus, the pricing of hosting plans, domains, and extensions vary widely. The respective costs range anywhere from a few dollars to thousands of dollars per month. You can create a WordPress website for any budget.
How to Create a Website to Sell Digital Products
Ready to get started? Below, I’ll walk you through how to create a website for selling digital products using WordPress and Easy Digital Downloads.
1. Purchase Your WordPress Hosting & Domain
If you don’t already have a WordPress website set up, the first step is to purchase a hosting plan and register a domain. Many hosts let you register a domain as part of your plan.
For e-commerce sites, I recommend SiteGround’s Managed EDD Hosting:
Each plan comes with the essentials needed to start an online store. This includes:
- WordPress pre-installed with a setup wizard
- Free Secure-Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate
- Easy Digital Downloads plugin
- The Vendd theme
- Growth tools (WPForms, MonsterInsights, AIOSEO, etc.)
SiteGround is one of the hosting providers that is officially recommended by WordPress.org. So rest assured you’ll get a reliable service optimized for speed, security, and performance.
For more, check out WPBeginner’s guide to finding a quality host (and discount codes!).
2. Get Easy Digital Downloads
To add e-commerce functionality to your WordPress site, you need an e-commerce plugin. WooCommerce is a popular choice for selling physical products. However, if you want to sell digital goods, use Easy Digital Downloads:
EDD is the best WordPress plugin for digital e-commerce. You can use it to sell different types of digital files and products, including PDFs, webinars, apps, audiobooks, graphic design presets and templates, stock photography, and more.
There is a free version available, which comes pre-installed with SiteGround plans. To access the full suite of extensions and features EDD has to offer, I recommend upgrading to EDD Pro.
💡 Learn more about EDD Free vs EDD Pro
After you choose your plan, download the plugin zip file from your EDD account dashboard. Next, upload it to your WordPress site (Plugins » Add New » Upload Plugin » Choose File):
Select the Install Now and Active Plugin buttons. Once it’s activated, Easy Digital Downloads adds a Downloads menu item to your WordPress dashboard:
You can click on Get Started to launch the Onboarding Wizard:
The setup wizard walks you through some of the initial key steps of starting an online store. For instance, you can configure the Stripe payment gateway, select conversion and optimization tools, and add your first product.
You can also refer to these guides for assistance:
3. Choose Your WordPress Theme
Selecting the right WordPress theme is a crucial step in building your website. Look for a theme that aligns with your brand’s aesthetics, offers the necessary e-commerce features, and provides a responsive design for optimal user experience across devices.
For an e-commerce theme that works well with Easy Digital Downloads, I recommend Vendd or Themedd. Storefront is another popular option. You can browse available themes under Appearance » Themes » Add New:
💡Check out 15+ eCommerce Themes (Free & Paid)
Once you install and activate your WordPress theme, you can customize it using the WordPress Customizer. Simply hover over your active theme, and select Customize:
Using the live customizer, you can change the header, typography and fonts, colors, and more. To help make designing your store and landing pages even easier, use a website builder plugin like SeedProd.
4. Connect Your Payment Gateway
To turn your WordPress website into an e-commerce store, you need a way to accept online payments. Easy Digital Downloads supports a range of gateways, including PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net, etc.
I recommend the Stripe Pro payment gateway. It lets you provide customers with multiple payment methods. Plus, it eliminates the additional transaction fee that you’d otherwise be responsible for with Stripe standard.
To connect your site to Stripe, go to Downloads » Settings » Payments:
Here, you can select Stripe as your active and default gateway. Under the Stripe tab, click on Connect with Stripe:
Enter your Stripe login credentials. If you don’t already have an account, you can create one for free. Next, choose your account and select Connect to link it to Easy Digital Downloads.
You’ll need to connect webhooks to complete the connection process. For detailed guidance on this, you can refer to Stripe documentation.
5. Add Your Digital Products
Once you’re connected to a payment gateway, you can start adding products to your store. All digital products in Easy Digital Downloads are called ‘downloads’. To get started, go to Downloads » Add New:
Name the product and add a description. The latter is where you can enter info about the product, like what it’s used for and any technical details. I’ll pretend I’m selling a template for this example:
Under Download Prices, you can enter the price you want to sell digital products for.
In the Download Files section, you can upload the product file.
Under File URL, click on the link icon and upload the file from your computer. Then you can change the File Name to whatever is appropriate, such as Download Template:
Keep in mind that your file name will be the clickable text link your customers use to download the product.
To the right, under Download Image, upload a featured image, which displays on your shop and product pages:
Click Save draft/Publish to push your product live. You can select View download to see how the product page looks from the front end of your website:
Repeat this process for as many products as you wish.
6. Customize Your Shop & Checkout Pages
Easy Digital Downloads lets you easily customize the appearance of your website, including your checkout and shop/product pages.
EDD automatically creates a checkout page for you. However, you can use plugins such as Checkout Fields Manager to add custom fields and/or conditional logic to the checkout form:
By default, the Shop page uses the EDD Products block to display the items in your shop.
There are a variety of settings within the right-side panel. For instance, you can modify the number of downloads and columns shown per page:
Individual Product Settings include:
- Show/hide title
- Featured image location
- Featured image size & alignment
- Content (No Content, Full Content, or Excerpt)
- Show/hide price & purchase button
- And more
When you’re done, remember to save your changes.
7. Promote & Sell Digital Products
The only thing left to do is to start promoting your store.
There are a handful of methods you can use. One is to use your blog to promote your products. To understand how to create content that improves search engine visibility, familiarize yourself with these basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tips.
You can also use email marketing tools and create lead magnets to help grow your email list. EDD integrates with a variety of email service providers. Check out the full list of EDD Email Integrations.
Finally, consider using affiliate marketing to help expand your reach. In a nutshell, this involves creating a referral-type program where other bloggers, publishers, brands, and influencers can promote your products. Affiliates earn a commission for every successful customer they send your way.
Follow our guide on How to Create an Affiliate Program.
FAQs: Creating a Site to Sell Digital Products
Let’s wrap up with some frequently asked questions.
How much does it cost to create a website to sell digital products?
The cost can vary based on hosting, themes, plugins, and additional services. However, starting with WordPress and EDD is relatively affordable. On average, the total cost for creating and managing an e-commerce website can range anywhere from about $20 per month to over $1k per month.
Is WordPress suitable for beginners?
Yes, WordPress’s user-friendly interface makes it accessible even for beginners. Additionally, EDD’s intuitive design simplifies the process of selling digital products.
Do I need coding skills to set up EDD on WordPress?
No, EDD is designed for non-technical users. It’s user-friendly so you can set up and manage your digital products without any coding knowledge.
Can I sell physical products alongside digital products?
Yes. EDD supports selling both digital and physical products, making it a versatile choice for various business models. You can even use it to create a membership site and sell subscriptions.
How can I drive traffic to my digital product website?
Implement SEO strategies, engage in content marketing, utilize social media, and consider paid advertising to drive targeted traffic to your site.
Can I use platforms like Etsy instead of creating my website?
Platforms like Etsy, Gumroad, and Shopify are viable options. But having your own website offers greater control, customization, and profitability.
Create an Online Store to Sell Digital Products
Creating a website to sell digital products opens a world of opportunities. You can turn your digital product ideas into a sustainable passive income stream.
By harnessing the power of WordPress and Easy Digital Downloads, you can establish a robust online presence, build a loyal customer base, and grow your e-commerce business.
Ready to get started?
What’s next? In addition to digital products/downloads, Easy Digital Downloads also lets you sell services from your WordPress site. Check out How to Sell Services to learn more!
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