Let’s start by understanding just how big Shopify is in the eCommerce market. 

Did you know that there are over 1.4 million sellers on the platform? 

Shopify owns 10% of the eCommerce market. 

Now, starting a shop on Shopify can be overwhelming. There are so many moving parts to creating a successful Shopify store. You’ve already got so many product lines and decisions to make, so why don’t you let us help you out with the rest? 

We’ve got the down-low on the 14 absolutely essential Shopify tips for new store owners, keep reading to find out more. 

1. Focus on Your Brand 

For the large part, your online presence whether it be just on Shopify or in other places too, like social media, needs to be consistent. 

Design your logo and your identity so that it fully represents what you want your brand to be. If you’re going to be selling trendy products to a younger audience, then think about using fun fonts in your logo and bright colors. 

Really, your brand should filter down through your Shopify store and should be an experience from the moment they land on your page until the moment that they check out. 

2. Make Use of Themes 

Shopify has some great themes that you can use to design your store. Some of these are free options while the more advanced ones are paid versions. 

It really boils down to how much you need to be able to customize your store but as a beginner, you cannot go wrong with picking a template and building your store up from that foundation. 

3. Use Keyword Research 

Your Shopify store used similar SEO tactics to a ‘normal’ website. Keyword research can be a solid foundation for how you reach your ideal target audience. 

Add your keywords to your Shopify store once you’ve refined the terms you want your e-commerce site to rank for. To increase SEO for your e-commerce store, you can add keywords to four elements:

• Titles of pages
• Descriptions of the meta tags
• ALT tags (alternative text)
• The content of a page’s body 

By using your keywords strategically throughout your store, you can increase your search engine rankings. 

4. Don’t Overdo It 

On the other side of the coin, it can be tempting to just pack your Shopify store with as many keywords as possible and hope for the best. You don’t want to do this. 

Make a special effort to prevent duplicate content. Duplicate content could be the result of websites attempting to trick the search engines in order to gain more visitors.

Auto-generated canonical tags are applied to the pages of your eCommerce store to avoid penalizing small company owners who may have identical product descriptions on multiple pages. Shopify will take care of a lot of the more technical SEO features for you in this section.

5. Google Search Console 

Add your sitemap.xml to Google Search Console after you’ve added your keywords (formerly called Google Webmaster Tools).

This means that when a search engine responds to an online searcher’s request, your site can be indexed and included in the crawl.

Your sitemap can be found at websitename.com/sitemap.xml in the root directory of your Shopify store’s primary name.

6. Focus on Page Speed 

1 in 4 people will leave a website if it takes longer than 4 seconds to load.  You simply don’t have the time to waste when you’re convincing people to stay on your page and shop from your store. 

Focus on the page speed for your Shopify store, make sure that each one loads fairly quickly, and that there are no lagging ones that might chase potential customers away. Your search engine ranking is also influenced by speed, thus speedier e-commerce sites will appear higher in customers’ online searches.

7. Beautiful Landing Pages 

A landing page can make a world of difference to a Shopify store. This is your opportunity to make a really, really good first impression for your visitors. 

Want yet another one of our great Shopify tips? 

Shopify actually has apps to help you build stunning landing pages for your store. You can use them for email marketing or simply when people find your website, whatever your reason is at that time. 

8. Facebook And Instagram Can Drive Traffic 

Although Facebook has more users than Instagram, research shows that Instagram has a greater level of engagement. You may transform ordinary posts into detailed adverts by integrating Instagram.

The price of a product is displayed in the photograph, which is a wonderful feature. For a visual medium like Instagram, these product price tags are a fantastic feature. Only a few countries have access to this feature.

Also, look into installing a Facebook pixel on your store. A Facebook Pixel is a snippet of code that you add to your site. It saves useful information that you can use to better target your adverts and attract clients who have already expressed an interest in your products.

9. Beautify Your Product Images

Here’s the thing, images of your product should almost be able to make the sale by themselves. This means one thing, you’re going to want to put priority on having beautiful images for your products. 

This isn’t to say that you need to book a professional photographer and spend thousands of dollars. But, if you can, find ways to take professional-looking photos on a budget. 

Really, the difference between high-res, high-quality photos and their opposite will mean polar opposites. You would even see a difference if you tested the theory! 

10. Keep Pricing Solid

Budget brands are known for leaning towards a $9.99 price instead of displaying a straight $10. 

However, these days, online stores with higher-end products tend to lean more towards displaying solid prices without a cents discount. It gives the impression of the product itself not being an affordable product for all, but a slightly higher-market version. 

This tip can be done automatically if your store is already up and running, within Shopify you can actually set your store to not show decimals. 

11. Policies Are Really Important 

One of the most common mistakes new store owners make is failing to include policies on their website. Customers frequently look at return policies when browsing websites to verify that they may get a refund if things are damaged. Your website’s legitimacy is also enhanced by policies. It contributes to the development of trust.  

Fortunately, you don’t have to start from zero when creating policies. The ones in your Shopify admin can be taken or modified. Keep in mind, however, that you will be obliged to adhere to the policies set forth on your website. If you allow refunds in your policies, you must also provide refunds when a customer requests one.

12. Optimize Your Store for Mobile 

Before you launch your first ad campaign, double-check how your website looks on a mobile device. When you create an advertisement, for example, not everyone will access the website on their laptop. Some people may view the advertisement on their phone or tablet.

When viewing your website on a different device, you may discover that photos are not properly resized. Knowing that the model’s face is cut off in the photo, you can crop the image differently so that it appears in the same format as the desktop version.

All you have to do to test on mobile is going to your website on your phone or tablet. Examine each page of your website for cut-off pictures and hidden calls to action, as well as the amount of scrolling required on each page.

13. Customize Your Domain 

It’s always, always a good idea to have your store URL be the name of your brand. You do know how it can sometimes seem unprofessional when a business’ website has wordpress.com/mybusiness as its name? 

The same can be said for you and your Shopify store. 

Consider buying the domain name for your business outright and then have it connected to your store directly so people can find you easily and your store is linked to your brand (like we mentioned in tip 1). 

14. Go International 

If you’re hoping to sell globally then there are two things you want to do:

Firstly, you’re going to want to offer multiple currencies on your Shopify store. 

Secondly, you should ensure that your store is multilingual in all the languages it should be. 

For example, if you’re hoping to make sales in Spain, then activate Spanish as a language and Euro as a currency. You’ll make life that much easier for your shoppers. 

The End of Our Shopify Tips = The Beginning of Your Shopify Journey 

So you’ve made it to the end of our Shopify tips list, we’ve covered everything from branding to SEO to pricing and more. 

What you’ve got to remember is that eCommerce is not a destination but rather a journey, and you’ll need to be willing to adapt your strategy and your store as time goes on. This may mean adding new products or upping your shipping offering, whatever it takes to keep those customers happy. 

Ready to start your eCommerce journey? Check out our classes here.