14 Workable Tips to Start & Grow Your Shopify ECommerce Store for Success

If you are at the stage of starting a new online store, then it is obvious that you would have heard about Shopify. While there are several eCommerce platforms to choose from, Shopify is one of the most popular ones.

Ask any professional and expert in this domain and they will tell you how great and potent this platform is becoming for online traders. The fact that Shopify powers over one billion businesses covering over 175 countries mean it is no ordinary platform.

Knowing that in 2019, online businesses setup on Shopify saw their sales increase by over 50% can be a big boost for you to consider Shopify as your next store.

Starting Your Online Store

Now, choosing Shopify won’t seem to be big a task, but starting on that and maximizing the potential for increasing your user base and earnings could be a bit challenging.

However, you don’t have to fret as we are here to help you out.

1. Don’t Forget Mobile-Friendliness

Creating your website on Shopify is a no-brainer. You just drag and drop using the elements. Make sure to use the great Shopify website design interface. While you will be awed by the amazing design layouts you can make use of, don’t forget to make it responsive.

In early 2019 around 79% of traffic on Shopify comes from mobile. So, you know how mobile version is key to making or breaking your market potential. And ensure to optimize it for different screen sizes.

For the mobile-specific site layout follow the below tips:

• The header should be fixed in position
• Keep images as the center of focus
• The CTA buttons should be bigger
• The emphasis should be on key points and less on text
• The popups should be minimum so as not to distract visitors

 

2. Go for an Impressive Webdesign Implementation

It is recommended that you make good use of Liquid, Shopify’s designer program. However, it is also important that you focus on some key aspects:

• Reflect on Your USP

A better website is which shows who you are, what you do, and whom you benefit, from in an instant. It should be what you are selling, where, and how.

• Ease of Navigation

Product search, easy and fast account creation, quick add-to-cart option, multiple payment gateways, and secure transactions; all these are critical factors that customers look for in an online store.

• Don’t Forget A/B Testing

While earlier it wasn’t something heavily stressed, now developers, designers, and also marketers have understood the importance of A/B testing for the site functionality and user experience. Imagery, font colors, CTAs, and messaging all such features are critical to this.

3. Site Load Time is a Big Factor

It has been established in studies that about one-third of your visitors will leave the site if the site takes more than three seconds to load.

This is something significant to ponder over. So, how should you optimize for fast site load:

• Use Compressed Media Files

Images and videos do take time to load. Therefore, the better compressed these are, the faster the site loads.

• Make Use of AMP

Accelerated Mobile Page provides for Google caching and implementation of this is a must if you want the site to load faster, especially on mobile devices, where most of your customers are.

• Don’t Use Unnecessary Plugins and Theme Features

Whatever plugins and theme feature you don’t need or are not using, remove them at once. These tend to make the site load a tad slow.

4. Building Product Pages

Product page info is key to attracting visitors’ attention as well as keeping things in a proper and organized matter.

• Meta Information – The meta title should be 50-60 characters which must match your URL. The meta description should be 130-160 characters. It is not a ranking factor but improves the click-through rate effectively. The correct meta information means you are enabling the store for search engine listing preview.
• Product Description – It is the highlight of what your product is. Keep it lengthy with full information, use headings, and also use bullet points to highlight the key features. The images should be added in high-definition, with multiple captures at different angles. Use alt text for the images.
• Customer Service Points – For this, you must include positive reviews. Ensure to encourage more and more positive reviews from your customers to build brand authority regularly. Also, adding a FAQ section will help you.

This checklist will help you in setting up your store.

5. Pick the Best & Suitable Theme

Choosing the correct theme could be a bit tricky. You will come across many themes and all will seem to be right. But how do you know which one is the best fit? Before going for a particular theme, there are several questions you should ask yourself:

• It is reflective of your brand, your personality, and overall, it should give you a unique presence.
• The theme makes it easy to navigate for the users.
• It gives the brand a meaning that you have envisioned.
• It makes for effective product selling that enhances the customer user experience.
• The theme should provide you with storytelling.
• It should come packed with all the powerful eCommerce features your store functionality needs.

Remember it isn’t that only paid themes are better all the time. Free themes can also provide you with an option that you find ideal for what you wish in your store. For budget constraint store owners, you can start with a free theme and then move to a premium theme when you feel the need for it and when you find something that you need to adapt.

6. Keep With Shopify Hosting

The hosting you pick is a big factor in deciding the website load speed, which subsequently is a big factor in the site’s ranking and user experience value.

Shopify provides the users with its hosting plan which is quite fast having a content distribution network (CDN). Even for Shopify Lite, ensure to make use of its hosting platform.

7. Do Not Go for Free Domain

What exactly a free domain looks like? Consider for example: Mystire.myshopify.com

Yes, this is a free domain; in fact, it is a subdomain. Going for a domain like this means you are a subsidiary of the parent (herein – Myshopify) and thereby render you without any particular brand identity. Also, whatever SEO efforts you put into will go toward enhancing the Shopify domain.

Needless to say, the domain does cost, but they don’t cost much every year. And what benefits they can provide you with is all worthy for such a small investment.

8. Use the Right Plugins

Plugins are highly helpful, especially for an eCommerce store. And Shopify provides you with many amazing ones. Shopify scores high when it comes to supporting customization with the number of personalization features and plugins it offers.

There are several plugins that will do a world of good for your store. However, we are listing some basic ones that you should consider first:

• HubSpot Shopify Plugin – Automating marketing will free your hands and minds to focus on other critical tasks. And this plugin does that.
• One-Click Social Login – It helps your customers not get overburdened thinking about filling in a lot of fields. It allows them to proceed easily with a one-click step. Therefore, it helps in decreasing abandoned cart numbers.
• Product Reviews for Shopify – If your business is getting reviews having less than 4 stars, more than half of the customers won’t consider purchasing from your store. This plugin allows users to quickly leave reviews on your store. Ensure to provide user experience and customer service that they leave 5-star or minimum 4-star reviews.

 

9. Establish a Value Proposition with a Strong, Catchy Headline

‘The first impression is the last impression.’ And it is the time when you have to put your best foot forward. Your banner headline should be concise, catchy, and impressive and clearly reflects what you stand for, what USP you carry, and how valuable you can be to your customers.

This aspect isn’t just for the main page, but all the pages, including product pages as well. This is the stage where the user decides whether to look into that more or move away.

• Make it personalized or state what difference you bring that nobody else provides
• Keep it short and to the point
• Convey benefit to the users
• Announce any special discount, reward, or anything else herein
• Add to it using a sub-heading below

 

10. SEO is Critical to Your Store’s Growth

Search Engine Marketing is important for your online store’s digital space visibility, ranking, and conversion. As almost 43% of traffic to eCommerce stores come from Google organic traffic, you cannot leave out SEO for your store, else you will be lagging behind your competitors.

On-site optimization, content development, keyword research and planning, page title and meta tags, submitting a sitemap, and much more; there is a lot to do in Shopify SEO you can’t miss out on.

SEO is not a small but a big and evolving, flexible, agile approach that should be implemented specifically to your objectives, your target audience, and your market. Make sure you consult a Shopify SEO agency that provides you with advanced and creative eCommerce SEO support as well as local SEO service to help you shine high for queries that your customers are searching for.

There are several SEO tools that you should make use of, including Google Search Console, and much more considering implementation, analytics, strategy planning, competitor analysis, and performance measurement and tracking. It will help you greatly to add Google Analytics to your Shopify store to keep track of how your site is performing.

11. Have a Clear, Friendly Refund and Return Policy

More than 90% of customers state that they are willing to buy again from a store if that provides for easy and convenient product return.

So, providing expedient support for returns and refund means you are providing an excellent customer service experience, which subsequently helps in repeat customers and brings in new customers.

Shopify makes this easy for you to generate refund policies. When making policies, keep in mind a few things:

• Keep it simple, and straightforward with easy language for everyone to grasp comfortably.
• State all the conditions upfront and clearly.
• Clearly state what is the time frame for refund and return.
• Mention what should be the condition of the item up to which you can accept the return.

 

12. Product Images are the Biggest Selling Point of Your Store

Even if you have done all things right, but the product images are poor, not clear, not high definition, not from different angle captures, and not with alt text, it can lead you to go nowhere. Almost every consumer now on online stores wants the product images to provide a detailed explanation of what it is and how it is going to help them.

You just can’t afford to falter on this step. There are some product categories where it becomes all the more important like clothing, jewelry, accessories, shoes, etc.

13. Use Social Channels to Draw in Traffic

Social channels are a great place to engage with potential customers. These platforms not just help you put your products and brand in front of them, but also bring in a sizeable amount of traffic considering how much time people spend on these.

Right from Pinterest to Instagram, there are several great, and yes, cost-effective, sources that could give your traffic a massive boost. 54% of social media users use social channels to browse for products. So, you know how effective these channels can be to bring in a huge amount of traffic to your store.

Make Your Presence on All Channels. Create a profile on all channels, especially Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, and promote your products regularly (including new launches, discounts, and all).

Maintaining and posting blogs about your products, and industry by covering informational topics, guides, statistics and all will help you to spread your word and develop brand awareness.

14. Product Pricing is an Important Consideration

Your product pricing shouldn’t be too high that distracts customers, and it shouldn’t be too low that makes it too good to be true. Setting prices too low not only can constitute you making losses, but also gives an impression that the product might not be quality-worthy.

You have to create a balance between offering affordability and profit margin. In the initial stage, providing discounts and rewards for referrals is a good step to attract customers. Make sure to conduct full research on your competitors. Have a detailed strategy on the pricing model, product supply model, and how you are going to sustain for the starting few months when you are building a consumer base. maintain the store.

Rather than going with a popular gimmick like pricing your products with a 99-cent bracket, highlight the product features, its quality, and worth of use for the customers that effectively justifies the price.

 

Final Words

Developing and maintaining your Shopify store requires efforts and adeptness that will come with time. From Shopify website design to Shopify SEO and more, everything has to be tacked with deep research and careful steps.

After you are done with all mentioned above, it is time now to launch your store. Remember that your big challenge comes up now. You should be at the top-tier when it comes to providing seamless, convenient, and timely customer support to make their buying journey smooth.