Shopify is a Monster. It’s the top e-commerce platform in the world. In 2022, Shopify is active on 3,882,345 websites. 2,666,627 of them are in the USA.
That means competition.
Whether as your side hustle or your main gig, running a Shopify store isn’t easy. Incremental improvements or little problems can decide whether you win or lose a sale. So what can you do?
You either hire a team of expert marketers that have launched hundreds of top brands on Shopify, or you become the expert for yourself 🦸♂.
From marketing to mobile, SEO to content, you can improve your online business by applying a few Shopify secrets. So we turned to Shopify experts and e-commerce entrepreneurs for real advice you can use.
We compiled their best tips into this Ultimate Shopify Guide for you.
Put these Shopify tips, tricks, ideas, and tactics to work today, and you can start landing more sales and profits for your Shopify store.
You are absolutely going to 💘 love this guide. You are going to love reading this so much that you will send this to your friends who use Shopify. And after you send it, your friends will thank you.
Are you ready to learn Shopify secrets?
⚠️ This is an Extensive Guide ⚠️
You should Bookmark it.
Or Download it as a PDF
Rainfactory’s Ultimate Shopify Guide
Table of Contents
📈 Increase Shopify Store Conversion Rates
At Rainfactory, we love deep dives into the data. We use that data to optimize pages for customer conversion, inform strategy, and tell us what media buying generates the best returns.
There are additional tricks to increase Shopify Conversion rates. Little problems add up. Small mistakes are like holes in a funnel. Instead of sales flowing into your business, customers leave your Shopify store for someone else’s.
To close those holes and fix those problems, we asked outside experts for their best tips to increase Shopify Conversion Rates:
Learn Mission Control
“Shopify prides itself on the ease of use of their platform, which is exemplified by their Mission Control dashboard. As a result, you’ll be able to manage every part of your organization more effectively. Mission Control enables you to quickly personalize your eCommerce store, set up an inventory system, build up apps, track them, and much more.”
– Jason McMahon, Digital Strategist,
Bambrick Digital Marketing Agency
With mission control you get to see the big picture better. You can look at a lot of different metrics for every part of your business. You can get contextual insights right from the same place. You can see how well your business is running. Spot trends, see how well you’re doing, and pivot all from mission control,
At any time, you can get a detailed look at how your store is doing. Track traffic, reach, orders, and revenue all at the same time, all in real-time. If you are going to use Shopify, you have to master Mission Control.
Include Links to Your Collection and Category Pages on your Homepage
“Ensure that all of your essential collection or product pages are accessible from the homepage’s top. This puts some of your most important content in easy reach of your visitors.
Your main page is usually the focal point of your website and the most powerful of all the pages. Including navigation links on your homepage provides a clear path for users to navigate around your store, regardless of its structure.
Many store owners make the mistake of not linking to their collection pages (also known as category pages) from their homepage. As a result, your crucial pages may be hidden deep within the store, making it difficult for users to find them. If you have a small number of products, connecting to each one rather than forcing a visitor to visit a collection page first can be more useful.
If you have more than a few dozen products, you might consider assigning them to collections. Shopify help center has a guide to collections and how to create them.”
– David Janssen, CEO & Founder, VPNoverview.com
Customers Demand Fast Fulfillment
“It would be wrong to think the customer experience ends with the payment going through. In reality, they’re quite near the beginning of the journey. The exact product they selected has to be taken from storage and shipped to their door. It has to be well packaged and in good condition.
As your orders increase, fulfilling and posting those products will take more and more of your precious time. Along with that, there is the danger of mistakes being made and delivery times being too slow. It’s reassuring to know that there are options. You can have an integrated system that will link with your Shopify site and feed all the transaction information right to an e-fulfillment company. From a front-end perspective, your customer will never know any difference, but they will be happy with the speedy delivery or their order.
– James Khoury, CEO, ZenBox
Closing sales and turning new customers into repeat customers isn’t just about a good website and smooth order fulfillment. A bad first impression can have customers breaking up with your amateur site faster than you can say, noob.
Amazon has raised the bar for everyone. Customers Demand their purchases get delivered FAST. It’s a critical part of building customer loyalty and rebuys.
Avoid Common Logo Mistakes
“Without a doubt, your Shopify store needs a logo. When I look at a new store’s logo, though, it’s almost always painfully evident that the owner lacks design skills. One of the most common mistakes is having a colorful store background and downloading your logo as a.jpg instead of.png. This results in an ugly white box around your logo. As a result, you’re a dead giveaway for being a complete noob.
Instead, a text-based logo is perfectly acceptable. There is no requirement for an image in your logo. Lulus and MVMT Watches, for example, have relatively simple logos. They might include a small graphic next to their name, but the focus is on the name rather than the design.
Maintain a straightforward approach. Keep an eye on the image resolution. Because they didn’t produce a logo that was the correct size for the platform, many retailers will have pixelated logos. Each Shopify theme has a unique set of dimensions for which your logo must be optimized. You can get in touch with your theme’s creator to ensure that the logo dimensions are correct.”
– Lauren Cook-McKay,
Director of Marketing & Content, Divorce Answers
Add all of Your Policies to the Footer
“One of the most common mistakes new store owners make is failing to include policies on their website. Customers frequently look at return policies to verify that they may get a refund if things are damaged. Policies also enhance your website’s legitimacy. They contribute 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. “You can find the policies in the Legal section of your Shopify settings.”
–Rameez Usmani,
Tech and Security Expert, Code Signing Store
Another amateur move? You’re shopping online, but you can’t find the store’s policies anywhere.
Returns? Nope. Shipping? Noperino. FAQ? Nada.
You know what you do, too.
You leave. And shop somewhere else. That’s what customers will do with your store too. Unless…
🧞♀️ Content Strategy Tips
“I’m not a fan of the word “Content”. It sounds like something you make to put it a box. We don’t go to a concert to listen to content, we go to experience something AMAZING. That’s what we strive to create with linkable assets like this Shopify Guide: Something amazing for the readers. But, alas, the industry has decided on the term content and we all know:
👑 Content is King. 👑
Content is every photo, audio, text, or video asset on your site and marketing channels. Content includes blog articles, social media posts, product photos, and even the descriptions on your product pages.
Content is everything that tells the story about your products and business. It gets across why a customer wants what you’re offering and why they want to get it from you.
To me, there are 3 main areas to focus on: content that answers questions, content that people want to link to and share, and content that converts.”
– Corley – Chief of Search @Rainfactory
Here are 6 outside expert tips on Content Strategy:
Lean Into Content Marketing
“You can use the blog feature on Shopify to create content around whatever you’re selling. Then, when people look for information related to your product, they will end up on your page. Optimized content that answers people’s questions will go a long way toward attracting new customers. For example, if you sell fitness products, create articles about different ways to use the equipment, proper nutrition, and topics related to wellness.
It’s also a good idea to type incomplete queries into Google. Let autocomplete show you the most common variations on your query. Then you can write to topics that people are searching for online. This method can also reveal low-competition keywords.”
– Mitchell H. Stern,
President & CEO, SideHustle.Tips
Rainfactories underlying philosophy for SEO is to Build what searchers genuinely want to find and then make it easy for them to find it. Natural language queries tell you how people are searching.
Invest in Great Product Images
“ “Never undervalue the value of high-quality pictures on your website. The more professional your brand appears to the customer, the better your photographs appear, the better your product appears, and the more professional your brand appears to the customer.
When it comes to developing your store, there are a variety of solutions available. Sites like Unsplash provide beautiful photographs for free. That type of image can work well as a header or backdrop, but hire a professional photographer for your product photographs. It’ll pay off handsomely. Good product photographs can be used in areas other than your store. Consider your social media posts, particularly those on Instagram. You might also snap high-end photos of brand ambassadors or pair them with customer testimonials to show what the product looks like.”
– Sarah Jameson
Marketing Director, Green Building Elements
The power of images in selling your product can’t be overstated. But it’s surprising how underused photos are, even in today’s competitive online shopping environment.
Think about it this way: How often have you gone to an online store, but the product listing only included one image? Sure, it’s better than nothing—but it’s not enough to close the sale. Odds are you looked for another site that listed the product but had more images. Maybe there was an intro or explainer video. And you bought from that site.
One image? Sheesh. That’s so 2001.
Showcase the Product with Additional Images
“Many stores simply do not provide enough product photographs, leaving shoppers unsure about making a purchase. Include images of the product from various perspectives, as well as the product in use. So, if you’re selling clothing, you could show off models with different builds and locales to persuade customers to buy. In other words, you’re leaving less to the imagination and giving them a clear picture of your goods right away.”
– Andrew Helling
Editor-In-Chief and Owner, Rethority
Don’t Default to the Manufacturer’s Supplied Product Descriptions and Images
“For Shopify, the biggest tendency is to just download the manufacturer’s listings and images for products and launch the website. This is the one biggest mistake I see on the platform. Taking this approach creates two major, but very fixable, issues.
First, write your own product and website copy. Search engines actively penalize websites for duplicate content. The other side of that coin is, they will reward websites for having original content.
Second, do not deselect all of the image SEO work. Image alt text and metadata are not completed for images. With Google’s June 2021 Multitask Unified Model (MUM) update, there is a major push for image quality factors as more substantial ranking signals. This means if your image data is blank or the same data is just copied from one image to the next, the website will have issues ranking for organic search.
Organic search factors like these also affect your search engine marketing (SEM). The bottom line? If your website has quality issues, your search rankings and paid ads will not perform as well.”
– Christopher Pittman,
Internet Marketing Expert
Use Future Publishing to Schedule Launches
“A future publication feature can be very useful for shop owners who want to schedule a new post, collection, or page ahead of time. Let’s say you’re launching a new summer stock page, and you want to get everything in place before customers can access the items. Future publishing lets you make sure all your content and images are loaded. Then it allows you to manage when the material becomes visible.
By creating a countdown to the scheduled time, you can create excitement and buzz among your followers and get them to take action.”
– Christian Velitchkov
Co-Founder, Twiz IO
Create new content regularly.
Original content. Scheduled content. Images. The power of content is the power to make your store and your business the profit center you want them to be. Your successful business recipe needs one more ingredient, though.
“The secret that has helped me to succeed at Shopify is that I create new content regularly to engage customers. One way to help build customer loyalty and encourage people to buy from you is to create more content. People will want to hear from you if you post content often.
Consider the most common customer questions about your products and sectors to come up with content ideas. You can also get ideas from industry forums.
When it comes to posting length, aim for works that are at least 500 words long. Longer content not only tends to rank higher in search engine results, but it also tends to be more useful. Shopify’s help section includes step-by-step instructions on how to add blog posts.”
– Jason McMahon,
Digital Strategist, Bambrick
📲 4 ways to optimize your Shopify store for mobile shoppers
It used to be that when people bought online, they bought from their computer. Even if they browsed on a tablet, smartphone, or other mobile device, that customer still completed their final purchase on a desktop or notebook.
Times have changed. From the moment they land on your site to when they receive their order, today’s customer expects a secure, fast, smooth browsing and shopping experience.
Make your store mobile friendly.
“A future publication featur “Over half of all internet usage is on mobile devices (and 10% are inside e-commerce apps). By not having a mobile-friendly store, you’re missing out on nearly half of your opportunities to engage and convert website visitors. e can be very useful for shop owners who want to schedule a new post, collection, or page ahead of time.
If you want your business to thrive in the mobile-powered future (or avoid being left behind), consider whether the Shopify theme you’re using is responsive for mobile. This will allow more mobile users to engage with your store. It can provide a few extra benefits too, like reduced bounce rates, improved customer experience, higher Google search ranking, and higher conversion rate.”
– NathanWatson
CEO, Lion Locs
When your Shopify store uses a mobile-friendly or responsive theme, you’re optimizing your site to work across virtually any device or display.
But your Shopify mobile journey doesn’t end there.
If you really want to dial up your site’s mobile-friendliness, here’s the next step you can take.
Consider developing a mobile app.
“If you don’t currently have an app version of our Shopify store, consider developing one.
An app can help you attract new customers who only use apps. It can also improve your store’s ranking in Google’s mobile-specific searches. An app can also allow individuals to start a purchase on their mobile device and finish it on their laptop if they choose.”
– Lee Grant,
CEO, Wrangu
There’s no better way to understand how your site performs on mobile than firing up your own phone or tablet and checking it out yourself.
Put your customer hat on: How quickly does the site load? Can you easily tap links and buttons? Does the layout work on smaller screens?
Yes or no?
Test your store’s mobile settings.
“Double-check how your website looks on a mobile device, especially before big moments such as launching an ad campaign.
When you create an advertisement, for example, not everyone will access the website on their laptop. Most people will 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.
If your main sources of traffic are ads, influencer marketing, or traffic from an app like Instagram or Pinterest, mobile testing is critical. All you have to do to test on mobile is go 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.”
– Neil Shaw, Founder
& CEO, Lottery Sambad
Browsing on mobile is important, sure. But there’s something else just as crucial. What was that, though? Hmmm, maybe we better search for it…
Make the internal search bar visible on mobile devices.
“One of the best hacks we implemented was making the internal search bar visible on mobile devices.
Most Shopify sites have the internal search bar hidden in the navigation dropdown. We noticed that when people used the internal search bar on their mobile devices, the conversion rate was 5x that of those who didn’t. We immediately moved the internal search bar to be visible at the top of the website.
Our average conversion rate on mobile devices almost doubled.”
– Jeff Moriarty,
Marketing Manager, Moriarty’s Gem Art
🔧 9 engaging tweaks convert your Shopify store visitors into buyers and repeat customers
Shopify tips and tricks can get down into some nitty-gritty details. Testing new ideas and seeing what impact they have on sales is key to figuring out how to gain not only new customers but repeat buyers.
Here’s a grab bag of Shopify tips and tricks you can test on your Shopify store:
Reduce your Shopify store’s cart abandonment rate.
“As a marketing consultant and an established entrepreneur, I run a successful niche website and have also managed e-commerce marketing campaigns for Shopify e-commerce stores. These holiday marketing tips helped me improve the conversion rate for campaigns.
They also worked wonders for my clients’ Shopify landing pages, from reducing their cart abandonment rate from 7% to 3%, and increasing conversions up to 23%:
- Displaying a countdown clock on the landing page
- Using exit pop-ups (such as with Hello Bar)
- Running dynamic remarketing ads.”
– Rohan Kadam
Marketing Consultant and Founder, Biking Know-How
When providing a consistent shopping experience, you want customers to feel like your Shopify store was made for them.
Offer personalized customer services.
“Offering personalized customer service has played a vital role in making me success with Shopify stores.
For the customer, each of your products is a one-of-a-kind experience. As a result, your primary focus should be on providing the greatest possible customer service. This involves giving your consumers a personalized customer service experience, which will certainly help you gain their trust.
Customers notice when they walk through the door and are welcomed with personalized service. According to a study, 76 percent of customers believe that customer service reflects how a company regards them. It establishes a level of care that your clients enjoy and expect by providing personalized service on a consistent basis.”
– Dan Close,
Founder & CEO, We Buy Houses in Kentucky
If content is king, service is queen. Today’s fast-paced, mobile-first customer doesn’t want to call your number, email customer support, or fill out some form, though. They want their question answered or the problem resolved—now.
Make the most out of Shopify’s live chat feature.
“I used to run a Shopify store myself. From my experience, I can say running a successful Shopify store is a laborious task in different aspects such as design, pricing, customer service, and more. But not one part is actually as much of a game-changer than this one thing:
Make the most out of Shopify’s live chat feature. Communicate with customers in real-time and help them solve any problems they might have right away. This way, they would not need to contact the customer service center or wait for a response from email or hop elsewhere for the same products.
By using live chat, we retained the customers in the first step of the whole purchase link.”
– Lynda Fairly
Co-founder, Numlooker
Sometimes shoppers feel rushed or stressed. Do you know what they need? A little fun in their online shopping.
A smile and a feeling of excitement can quickly translate into that customer not only finding what they need but having a good time doing it. And if they associate fun with your site, you’ve made them all the more likely to return to your Shopify store.
Use giveaways and contests in your Shopify store.
“Giveaways and contests are an under-appreciated digital marketing gold mine.
Shopify users are in a unique position to benefit, thanks to the platform’s outstanding analytics and integration. The only reason these strategies are underutilized? They are frequently misapplied.
Giveaways, in particular, have a knack for getting viral for relatively little money. You may find yourself with more leads than you can handle. Freebies can also drive tremendous traffic and revenue.”
– John Marsano,
Founder & CEO, Inheritance Advanced
Sure, you want to treat every customer as an individual. But every customer has things in common with other customers.
The better you can organize your customers into targeted groups, the better you can reach out to them for repeat purchases, promotions, and more.
Utilize Shopify’s Customer Groups feature.
“As marketers, we know how important it is to segment your potential customers.
But what about your existing customers?
In order to make repeat sales, retarget your customers, and send them emails, organize your customers into groups.
Shopify’s Customer Groups feature accomplishes this. Customers can be organized into groups by saving searches that you have conducted on them based on filters. It’s possible to group customers based on how much they spend or where they have bought from. Then you can tailor loyalty programs, emails, and other marketing efforts. Accordingly. You can get more information in Shopify’s Customer Creation Manual.”
– Leonardo Gomez
Founder, Try Runball
Business owners wear so many hats. In your quest to get the most out of your Shopify store, here’s the one hat that you might put on more than any other.
Think like your customers.
“As a store owner, you naturally have a different perspective of your products. For example, instead of categorizing your products by brand, categorize them by the way that people would explore new products.
Always list best sellers or new arrivals on the homepage. Save filtering by type or brand name as a second step within a collection page. Promote discoverability over anything. Test out the search bar to make sure your products can be discovered as you expect them to be.
How to make sure you’ve done it right? Get a friend or two to use your website for five minutes and see what issues they run into that you hadn’t thought of.”
– Hana Drdla,
Shopify Designer & Developer
Your store is full of good products. Your site is solid. But not every customer is coming to your Shopify store for the same reason. Some customers might have bought from you before, but it’s been a while, and your store has slipped out of the front of their minds.
Are they lost forever—or is there a way you can entice them back?
Use sales triggers.
“Sales triggers let you automatically send promotions and discount coupons at appropriate times, such as before the start of a big holiday season or before your inventory runs out at the end of a sale. This feature can encourage customers to buy more than they otherwise would have if they see an opportunity arise. Here are a few sales trigger examples:
- Use a limited-time offer and see how many people buy the product.
- Create an exclusive offer, like a free consultation or trial, and see how many people sign up for it.
- Ask your customers to share their stories about why they use your product. Share those stories on social media as well as in newsletters.
- Share testimonials from your customers on your website or blog to show that others are using the products successfully.
This is a great tip for people who want to increase sales and revenue easily. Test and see the results!”
– Menelaos Menelaou
Digital Marketing Specialist, DigitalSeos.com
As you improve your site, increase sales, and grow your customer base, you’ll develop more loyal, repeat customers too. Loyal customers spread the word about your Shopify store. In return for that word-of-mouth marketing, they want to feel valued. They know they’re part of your success.
That’s why it’s crucial to reward their loyalty and referrals.
Implement a referral program.
“A referral system helps your customers market your business for you while also rewarding them for their efforts. Other companies may see your recommendation page and jump at the chance to work with you and expand your brand’s reach even further.
There are a lot of wonderful referral systems out there, but I recommend Referral Candy because of its high ratings and ease of use.”
– Darshan Somashekar,
Founder & CEO, Solitaired
Loyal, satisfied customers are also the ones who will talk up your Shopify store. They’ll tell their friends. They’ll review your products. They’ll praise you on social media.
If only there were a way to pull that praise into your own site and marketing…
Feature User-Generated Content (UGC).
“Allowing consumers to contribute content for businesses on social media is a terrific method to enhance your sales. Having individuals write messages with your items not only helps with SEO. It also improves audience engagement and generates talk about your products. This is the kind of stuff that spreads like wildfire.
Offering an incentive is one of the simplest methods to encourage customers to generate content highlighting your products. Selfies, videos, and write-ups are all examples of this type of content.”
– Sumit Bansal
Founder, and CEO, TrumpExcel
💃 6 attention-grabbing ideas keep you front-of-mind with customers
Getting people’s attention, earning a potential customer’s trust, and turning that into a sale is not easy in today’s competitive e-commerce climate. But you can do it.
Staying front-of-mind with customers and your broader market keeps people not only coming to your store for the first time. It keeps them coming back for more.
How to pull it off, though, may mean reaching beyond your own business.
Stop talking about influencers and start collaborating with them.
“Working with influencers isn’t the latest and greatest in the world of growth marketing. To be honest, this strategy has been around for a long time, both online and offline.
But there’s a reason: It can generate thousands of sales in a single day.
The argument is simple: Influencers already have a loyal following. A substantial number of brand lovers openly pull out their credit cards when they propose a product to their audience.”
– Julian Goldie,
CEO, Goldie Agency
Jumpstart your outreach.
“Begin gathering email addresses and creating your media list well before your launch. Marketing is critical to any site’s long-term success, and it’s never too early to begin laying the groundwork. At the very least, install a coming-soon banner on your site.
Additionally, utilize social media intelligently. Develop engaging pages on Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook, among other platforms. Appoint influencers, host pre-launch contests, and promote your product to generate excitement and develop your follower base. This can eventually convert into devoted consumers.”
Lauren Cook-McKay, Director of Marketing & Content, Divorce Answers
Getting customer feedback isn’t always easy. At least, it’s not easy to persuade customers to leave a review on your site.
Fortunately, there’s somewhere customers regularly talk about their experiences. And you just might be able to work that online praise into your store and marketing.
Add consumer reviews.
“There’s no denying that reviews and ratings are one of the most powerful ways to influence buyers.
In fact, approximately 95% of shoppers will read reviews before making a purchase decision. This is because, understandably, customers trust other consumers more than businesses.
Customers love to leave reviews online. Need help growing your rating section? Ask consumers to leave you a review once you send them a confirmation email, a delivery email, or even when they contact your support team. “
– Tyler Martin,
Founder and Certified Business Coach, ThinkTyler
Running an online store is all about trying things out and seeing what increases sales. A regular customer pain point—and opportunity for testing—is how much you charge for shipping… or if you should charge for shipping at all.
Remain creative with visual content.
“According to a study, engaging posts containing photographs increase the likelihood of your material being shared or reposted by the audience on various social sites by 39 percent. Tik Tok, Instagram, and Pinterest, on the other hand, remain among the most popular social media networks of all time, with more monthly users than any other channel. What is the reason for this?
Their feeds are always full of vibrant, vivid visual content that keeps their audience engaged throughout their surfing experience. While creating visual material, don’t limit yourself to photos. We may now learn from the finest when it comes to a very innovative sort of content: video. In fact, the emergence of Tik Tok and Instagram platforms has proven that consumers on the internet like to interact in video content.”
– Tanner Arnold,
President & CEO, Revelation Machinery
That said, it’s not always easy to get reviews, but that doesn’t make them any less powerful.
Add consumer reviews.
“There’s no denying that reviews and ratings are one of the most powerful ways to influence buyers.
In fact, approximately 95% of shoppers will read reviews before making a purchase decision. This is because, understandably, customers trust other consumers more than businesses.
Customers love to leave reviews online. Need help growing your rating section? Ask consumers to leave you a review once you send them a confirmation email, a delivery email, or even when they contact your support team.
– Tyler Martin,
Founder and Certified Business Coach, ThinkTyler
Running an online store is all about trying things out and seeing what increases sales. A regular customer pain point—and opportunity for testing—is how much you charge for shipping… or if you should charge for shipping at all.
Take a chance on free shipping.
“Free shipping is a huge plus for buyers. As a result, when you offer it as a bonus, you’ll almost certainly see an increase in orders placed. The only issue? Free shipping eats into profit margins. The solution to this issue is to offer free shipping on orders exceeding a certain amount.
However, keep in mind that if your products are one-of-a-kind, free shipping might not be the best option. On the other hand, if your store sells complimentary items, it’ll be much easier for you to make up the shipping difference with additional shopping cart items at checkout.”
– Susan Smith,
Marketing Manager, Velden Engineering
🐆 4 techniques to outpace and out-innovate competitors
Today’s online shopping world is faster-paced than ever. Shopify store runners work hard not only on their business but to keep up with the latest trends in the industry and in the market.
That can sound overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are five simple ways you can keep up—and race ahead.
Keep your Content on-Trend
“Make sure your photographs are on-trend and flashy enough to capture people’s attention.
It’s not a terrible idea to keep up with the latest trends, but don’t make it too common so that your audience becomes bored to death. Basically, you can always experiment with effects, frames, typefaces, and colors to produce unique visual content that will draw favorable brand engagement.”
– Ethan Howell,
Co-Owner, Florida Environmental
Sure, “mind your own business” is a classic saying. But to be successful, you’ve got to mind your competitor’s business too. When you do, you can learn some pretty valuable info that you can put to work in your own Shopify store.
Figure out what’s working for your competition by being their customer.
“The easiest way to do that is to find other stores on Shopify that are doing well and then go to their page, usually by clicking on the links in the Competition tab of your report.
Then, click on their Connected Stores tab at the top of their homepage. This will show you if they have other stores on Shopify, what those stores are called, where they are located, and how much they have sold.
Once you find a couple of stores, go to their homepage and look at what they are selling. Browse through the products. If it’s possible for you to do so, buy a specimen or two from that store. That will tell you almost everything about their business.
You’ll know how long they’ve been in business, exactly what types of products they sell, where those products come from, which suppliers provide them with those items, how much profit they make on each item sold and so many other bits of information about their company!
This is all valuable information. If they can do well, then so can your Shopify store!”
– Darren Litt,
Co-Founder, Hiya Health
Being in business can be a lonely quest. But it doesn’t have to be. Especially when you are starting out, there’s a secret you can put to work to grow sales and customer reach.
Partner with established brands
“When I first started my Shopify store, I was low on sales. Then I decided to partner up with established brands, and it did wonders for me.
If you don’t have a well-known brand, collaborating with well-known businesses can help you grow your business. You may stand out by creating custom product variations or combining existing and popular products into new collections.
Join public relations forces. When you team up with another company, the cost of launching a new campaign or product is instantly cut in half. Any influencers, bloggers, and high-level journalists with whom you’re partnering have connections that can be made available to your store. Make use of them.
Customers will benefit from more resources in the form of better deals and giveaways. If you opt to collaborate with another store, you can pool money for a cash reward or products for a packaged gift in exchange for a customer’s email address. You’ll get a number of new email addresses as a reward, which you may use for remarketing efforts later, even after the partnership has finished.”
– Sarah Jameson,
Marketing Director, Green Building Elements
What’s good for your Shopify store is probably good for Shopify too. It’s no wonder they have a baked-in way for you to find road-tested solutions for your own business challenges.
Find solutions in Shopify’s Exchange Marketplace
“It is crucial to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing. After all, if someone else has already addressed an issue, you can simply use the same solution and save time and money.
The Shopify Exchange Marketplace is an excellent source of information. You can look through and sort by price, revenue, age, or industry. Each store’s expenses, revenues, and even the seller’s recommendations on how to continue growing the business are all detailed.”
– Rameez Usmani,
Tech and Security Expert, Code Signing Store
💡 9 Tips on Fine-Tuning Shopify
Sure, we want to see our sales do a big ole “hockey stick leap” into big numbers—and bigger profits. While those huge increases can happen, a lot of what it takes to grow sales is to fine-tune the small stuff.
Over time, making multiple small improvements adds up to more orders per day and larger overall order sizes. Before you know it, those little gains have taken off. They might be larger typical sales days than you had before. But they could be something bigger. Heck, that growth might even look like a hockey stick.
These tips focus on the small stuff. The little tweaks and changes can pay off in big ways.
Enable Cart Notes on the Checkout Page
“One little-known trick which can improve your conversion rates substantially is to enable cart notes on the checkout page. By default, this feature is disabled in Shopify.
I’ve tested cart notes on three of my Shopify stores. When the cart note feature was enabled, I saw conversion rates increase by 16% on average. The reason for this? Not all orders are the same. Some customers will want to add a note explaining how to make the delivery, or perhaps how to package or address the item. You’d be surprised at the variations in the types of notes!
– Marc Bromhall,
Founder, Surf Gear Lab
What’s the price of success? Make sure you regularly test different pricing, change up your pricing during different seasons, and see what customers respond to. But all that work can be a pretty high price to pay…
Use price to your advantage.
“The cost of your store’s merchandise is really essential. When you think about it, price is what either increases or decreases the bottom line of every purchase you execute.
To test prices on Shopify in the past, it was necessary to make changes to a product to justify the change. Taking into account factors such as fluctuating traffic and seasonal trends, comparing efforts was obviously time-consuming.
Split-testing high-profit products is now simple, thanks to tools like the Quant Price app.
By doing so, you ensure that price has the greatest possible beneficial impact on earnings. To make the most of Quant Price, you’ll need to first figure out what your best-selling products are. Remember that products with 100 or more monthly sales can be the greatest candidates for testing.”
– Nick Edwards,
Director, Snow Finders
Hacks and data thefts are front and center not only in the headlines but in the minds of wary customers. Customers don’t want their data getting stolen. Plus, when they’re navigating your Shopify store, they don’t want to feel lost.
Ensure effective security and create mindful navigation.
“Optimization helps visitors to your site have a better understanding of what your business is about and why they should buy from you. Ensure effective security. To keep your consumers safe, display your site’s SSL certificate as well as the logos of any third-party security businesses you may be working with.
Create mindful navigation. Although security and performance are important aspects of site optimization, users must also be able to browse simply through your goods. A search box is a must-have, as is a straightforward menu system.”
–Oliver Andrews,
Owner, OA Design Services
Sure, it’s important to keep some things simple. Is your site secure? Yes. Is there a search box and clear navigation? You bet.
But what about your products?
If you’re only selling one product or just a couple of products, you could be missing out on cross-sales, up sales, and additional ways to appeal to a customer’s needs and wants.
Expand your Product Catalog
“Expanding my product catalog on Shopify has helped me a lot in gaining more traffic and attention from customers. It has been my secret recipe for success on Shopify.
What are the chances of having a bunch of customers wishing to buy one of your products if you only sell one?
It’s most likely very little.
You won’t get many sales if you don’t sell a lot of things. You will, however, need to keep track of sales and how many consumers you are getting. You make more money if you sell more. It doesn’t mean you have to sell everything but think about offering a variety of things in your niche.
Find complementary things to sell while remaining on brand and flexible. For example, if you sell backpacks, you could also start selling suitcases.”
– Sep Niakan,
Managing Broker, Condoblackbook
Speaking of products, over time, you’ll evolve your Shopify theme. You’ll want to see if different themes do a better job of converting site visitors to paying customers.
At the same time, all those design changes could get pretty costly… unless you know this trick.
Create custom pages to test different layouts.
“You can create custom product pages in Shopify without paying for expensive apps. Simply duplicate the product template, give the page a unique name, then assign it to a specific product. Now you can test different product page layouts before investing in an app or a custom-coded page.”
– Manno Notermans,
CEO, Think Orion Marketing Agency
Testing and evolving your site is a normal part of business, but you also want to set yourself up for success from the get-go. And that doesn’t mean grabbing the latest, flashiest theme.
Select the appropriate Shopify template.
“It may be tempting to select and install an eye-catching and trendy Shopify theme. If this is done at the price of user experience, your efforts will be in vain.
Many attractive designs can drastically reduce the loading time of your eCommerce site. That can cause consumers to abandon the page and their cart. In fact, even a one-second delay in loading might result in a 7% drop in conversion rates.
Look for themes that are totally responsive so that your site may be viewed on any device. Choose a cross-browser-friendly theme to avoid narrowing your search if customers use Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, or Safari.”
– Jason Feldman,
Founder, Immigrate Me
What you don’t measure, you can’t improve.
Be comprehensive in your testing and metrics.
“Performance testing can verify that users have a consistent experience across all elements of your organization. As a result, it is critical that your analytics provide detailed data on all aspects of your site’s performance, from page loading through the checkout process, and everything in between.”
– Daniel Foley,
Daniel Foley, SEO Executive, MCS Software Rental
You know how it is. You’re in a hurry. You haven’t bought from a site before. But they’ve got what you need, and you’re ready to go…
Wait.
You have to create an account to finish checkout.
Forget that—close tab.
You’ll just order somewhere else. Where the store has done this one simple thing.
Implement guest checkout.
“If customers have to register a new user account, the majority of users will abandon their shopping basket.
It’s also not unexpected: If someone is in a hurry or on the fence about buying your product, requiring them to create an account in order to finish the transaction will certainly turn them away.
This is why having a guest checkout is so important to the success of your store. Customers can choose whether or not to create an account before completing a purchase, thanks to Shopify. All you need to do is set up your account to allow guests to check out.”
– Sumit Bansal,
Founder, and CEO, Trump Excel
Just because a customer abandoned their cart doesn’t mean all hope is lost. At least, not if you’ve gone above and beyond the default abandoned cart email.
Automate Your Abandoned Cart Flow
“Most businesses who start on Shopify might set up an initial abandoned cart email. In reality, however, the best practice is to set an abandoned cart flow. The flow reminds the customer three separate times of their abandoned cart while also providing an incentive along the way.
With Shopify’s third-party app store, you can do exactly that. Simply download Recart, set up your abandoned cart email series, and watch your conversion rate climb.”
– Jonathan Zacharias,
Founder, GR0
🔎 4 Shopify SEO Tips
Word of mouth, social media, and email marketing are just a few ways customers might find your Shopify store and become your customer. But search engine rankings, especially in Google, are a major consideration for any Shopify store owner.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, isn’t magic. It’s simply putting together your site in a way that helps it show up for relevant terms or keywords that a customer is searching for.
A lot of SEO is applying solid e-commerce fundamentals, crafting unique content, and putting to work Shopify’s SEO-friendly tools. Here are four ways to use Shopify to help your store perform better in search engines.
Use collection pages for SEO
“In terms of SEO, collection pages are crucial. Because ranking a specific product page for a keyword can be tough at times, you can use collection pages to rank for a relevant keyword instead. Since collection sites aren’t product pages with prices and such, they rank well in Google. They’re basically a page that showcases a selection of your products.
For Google to rank the collection page, you’ll need to add content to it. The purpose of the content is to get on Google’s radar. Cram in as many words and details as possible regarding the keyword/products you’re mentioning. Put the content below the products so that people can see them right away, which is what collection pages are for.”
– Steve Scott,
CTO, Spreadsheet Planet
A lot of SEO suggestions can focus on the text. Images get overlooked. However, images are a key component of SEO.
Not only can SEO on images improve your search rankings, but it can also improve your Shopify store’s accessibility. And the more accessible your site is, the better that can be for your search rankings.
Optimize the images in your Shopify store for SEO and accessibility.
“Image optimization is a great way to improve your Shopify store’s visibility in Google and other search engines.
“For years, search engines have been using alt tags, or alt attributes, as a shortcut for understanding what photos on a website are about. All of your images must have appropriate alt tags that feature relevant keywords.
For example, if someone searches for images of red boots, photographs from your site are more likely to come up if your images of red boots contain alt tags that provide a suitable description.
There’s also the issue of accessibility to think about. Buyers with vision problems can use screen readers to navigate your website. Screen readers can make use of alt tags to tell the user what the image is about. The better your alt tag is, the more likely you are to persuade someone to add the item to their shopping basket.
Accessibility requirements are also one of the many ranking variables that search engines use when evaluating your website. So, if you use photos on your Shopify site, make sure they’re all optimized.”
– Herbert Riggs,
CEO, UnscrambleX
SEO is something you’ll tackle not once but on a regular basis.
Typically a Shopify store owner may conduct a larger SEO audit upfront, improve, and monitor performance. Over time, you’ll identify other areas where you can do better. You might also consider monthly or quarterly SEO audits.
Search engines like Google also regularly change up how they rank sites. SEO isn’t a fixed destination. It’s a moving target. Luckily, a couple of things can help you keep hitting that bullseye.
A few simple Shopify tips and tricks can make your Shopify store SEO friendly.
“Although SEO is one of the more difficult and time-consuming chores for Shopify store owners, a few tricks can make it a relatively simple process.
To begin, go through a Shopify SEO checklist. For example, conduct keyword research, install Google Analytics and set up Google Search Console. From there, optimize your pages based on your keyword research. That can include optimizing your images, gaining backlinks, deploying your content strategy, and getting the most out of social networking.
A Shopify SEO tool like Plug in SEO can provide further in-depth optimization. Plug in SEO analyses your store and correct common but inconvenient SEO issues. It also includes templates for meta descriptions and titles, as well as fixing broken links and adding JSON-LD structured data.”
– Eric Carrell,
Marketing Advisor, SurfShark
One key to SEO? Little changes.
Some SEO tweaks can be as simple as switching word order on a phrase or replacing a keyword with a variation that has a better opportunity for you.
And inside Shopify, there’s a key area where you can make some of these changes.
Optimize Titles For Searchers
“Building a well-designed site is one thing, but the key to success is attracting potential customers. And the best way to do that is through search engines.
By optimizing your site for Google and other platforms, you’ll help those search engines understand what your site is about. That way, they know which searches to include your Shopify store in.
You don’t need to be an SEO pro to let Google know what your site is about, either.
It’s as simple as including your primary keyword in the page’s meta title, and Shopify makes it very easy to edit that. If you have an inventory page displaying all of your blue T-shirts, including the phrase ‘blue t-shirts’ somewhere in the meta title will let Google know what type of product your page includes.”
– Chris Zacher,
Content Marketing Strategist, Intergrowth
Shopify success is in your reach
Shopify is a powerful platform. This guide helps. Link to it!
But if you are more focused on other aspects of your business, and you have resources, it often makes sense to hand off parts of your marketing to the people who have done it before. People like we have at Rainfactory.