Shopify is a top platform for creating and managing e-commerce stores, with over 1.75 million merchants using it in 175 countries. While Shopify offers a robust set of tools to streamline store management, overlooking certain crucial aspects during setup can lead to complications later on.
To help you build a thriving online store, our Shopify Plus development agency has put together a comprehensive Shopify store checklist that covers the essential steps for success.
How Is Shopify Utilized?
Shopify is a cloud-based e-commerce platform that enables businesses globally to create and manage their online stores through a subscription service. Entrepreneurs and companies of all sizes widely use it to establish and grow their online presence. Shopify supports hundreds of thousands of businesses, allowing them to easily set up an online store and sell products, making it a popular choice for well-known brands and smaller ventures.
Essential Checklist for Launching Your Shopify Store
1. Establish Your Shopify Website Domain
In the initial phases of establishing your Shopify store, you receive a complimentary myshopify.com domain, such as “https://new-fashion-brand.myshopify.com.”
However, from a customer’s perspective, this doesn’t present a professional image and can hinder your business from developing a strong brand identity. As discussed later in this article, a unique domain is more memorable and contributes to building trust and authority.
You can purchase a domain through various online providers, including Google Domains. Collaborating with a Shopify development agency can help streamline your domain setup if you have tight deadlines.
It’s important to note that when you update your domain, you might encounter an error indicating that it is not connected. This is normal, as it can take up to 24 hours for the domain changes to take effect.
2. Create Essential Pages
Every Shopify store should include essential pages that customers expect to find. These pages foster trust and credibility with your brand while enhancing the overall user experience. They typically provide valuable information about your brand, products, policies, and how customers can reach you.
Here are the key pages your Shopify store should feature:
- Homepage
- Contact Page
- About Page
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Shipping & Returns Policy
- Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy
- Collection Pages
- Product Pages
- Checkout Page
3. Setup Shopify Payment Options and Tax Management
Shopify offers a variety of payment gateway options to meet your business’s needs. These include Shopify Payments, PayPal, Worldpay, and several others, each catering to different customer preferences. Choosing the right Shopify payment gateway before setting up your store is essential, as this choice will help ensure secure online transactions for both your business and your customers, protecting debit and credit card payments.
4. Establish Your Shopify Shipping Rates
You must establish competitive shipping rates that are transparent to customers before they complete their purchase, along with accurate delivery estimates. It’s crucial that your shipping rates align with the products you offer and the locations you serve. Various shipping rates are available, including calculated shipping, flat rate shipping, and weight-based shipping, among others.
5. Optimize Speed for Your Shopify Site
When setting up your Shopify store, paying attention to its loading speed is important. The speed of your Shopify store significantly impacts user experience and the overall success of your online business. A good speed score is above 50, according to Google Lighthouse. Using the Page Speed Insights tool, you can also assess your store’s loading time.
6. Optimize Your Shopify Store for Mobile Users
Even in 2024, some businesses still neglect to consider their website’s mobile version. Our recommendation? Don’t be one of them!
Why is this important? According to our blog on how site speed affects the customer journey, 79% of customers who are unhappy with a site’s loading speed are unlikely to return. This represents a significant potential revenue loss.
One of the benefits of using Shopify is the ability to adjust settings to enhance your site’s mobile appearance. It’s advisable to conduct multiple site speed tests using tools like Google Page Speed and check for broken links. You can utilize Eastside Co’s Easy Redirects app to identify and fix those links.
While site speed is crucial, it’s not the only aspect to consider. Factors such as image placement, call-to-action (CTA) positioning, minimizing pop-ups, and optimizing for various browsers can also influence the performance of your Shopify site on mobile. This is an excellent opportunity to seek feedback from a UI/UX designer on your mobile web design.
7. Enhance Your Store with SEO Strategies
One key practice to prioritize when creating your Shopify store is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Shopify SEO is a powerful marketing approach that optimizes meta titles, product descriptions, image alt texts, and more to enhance your e-commerce store’s visibility in Google’s organic search results. This strategy helps you stay ahead of competitors, attract new potential customers, and drive traffic to your website.
There is abundant information available on optimizing your SEO strategy, and we recommend spending time familiarizing yourself with the fundamentals. Shopify provides various tools to enhance your store’s SEO, and learning to utilize these tools effectively brings you closer to establishing a successful Shopify store.
Here are some essential SEO tasks to focus on when building your new Shopify store:
Create a Sitemap
Developing a sitemap during the Shopify store setup process is vital for user experience and SEO. A sitemap serves as a blueprint for your store’s structure, outlining the organization and connection of various pages. It facilitates better crawling and indexing by search engines like Google, ensuring all important pages are discovered and ranked.
Image Optimization
To improve the SEO of your Shopify store, ensure all images are optimized by following these steps:
- Use descriptive image file names that include relevant target keywords.
- Optimize your image alt texts with a brief description that incorporates targeted keywords.
- Using platforms like Pixlr or Canva can reduce image file sizes (in pixels) without compromising quality. JPEG and PNG formats are the most suitable for online use.
Keyword Research and Optimization
Conduct keyword research to uncover what your target audience is searching for. Focus on long-tail and short-tail keywords relevant to your products with high search volumes. Additionally, consider transactional and informal search intent keywords. Incorporate these keywords into your Shopify store’s content so that search engines can accurately rank your pages.
Google Business Profile
Complete your Google Business profile with all necessary information, including services offered, business address, and contact details. Adding high-quality images to showcase your products can also enhance trust among potential customers. An updated Google Business profile significantly boosts credibility for your Shopify store.
Content Marketing
Produce high-quality, optimized content for all essential pages of your Shopify website. This includes detailed product descriptions, features and benefits, usage instructions, shipping and returns policies, and more. Quality content not only improves your Google rankings but also increases conversions.
Building backlinks for your Shopify store and promoting these links will enhance your site’s visibility. Consistently working on your SEO strategy from the outset enables search engines like Google to make your site more accessible.
8. Invest in High-Quality Product Photography and Media
Creating and finalizing any type of media can be time-consuming, requiring extensive collaboration, planning, and review. Having a well-organized library of high-quality media assets ready before launching your Shopify store will enhance its overall appeal and save you significant time in the future.
The visual assets you’ll need to include:
- Product photographs
- Branded images
- A collection of stock photos
- Logos in EPS, JPG, and PNG formats
- A style guide
- Branded graphic elements
- Icons
- Video files
While this may seem like a lot, having a diverse range of assets will benefit you during the Shopify setup.
Additionally, it’s wise to create versions without your logo for any branded images featuring your logo. This allows you to use them across your Shopify store and other marketing initiatives. For this purpose, consider using simple design tools like Canva, or apps like Video Background can be very useful for more engaging content.
9. Improve User Experience
When setting up your Shopify store, it’s crucial to design it to have a positive user experience. This involves creating an easy-to-navigate layout with clear menus and search options. Your store should be mobile-friendly, responsive on all devices, load quickly, and optimized for Google’s Core Web Vitals.
How to Enhance Your Shopify Site Speed
To achieve a good speed score, focus on the following strategies:
- Reduce Image File Sizes: Optimize images to decrease their loading times.
- Limit Installed Apps: Minimize the number of apps you use, as each can slow down your site.
- Choose a Fast-Performing Theme: Select a Shopify theme that is designed for optimal speed.
- Enable Caching: This helps decrease loading times for returning visitors.
- Minimize Page Elements: Reduce the number of elements on each page to improve speed.
Importance of Loading Speed
- User Experience: A faster site enhances overall satisfaction.
- Increased Conversion Rates: Quick-loading pages can lead to more sales.
- Higher Rankings: Improved speed contributes to better rankings and more organic traffic.
- Mobile Friendliness: A fast site is more accessible on mobile devices.
- Customer Loyalty and Retention: Satisfied customers are more likely to return.
- Enhanced Brand Perception: A quick site reflects professionalism.
- Better Ad Performance: Fast-loading pages can improve the effectiveness of your ads.
10. Explore Chatbot Options or Integrate Direct Messaging
As technology evolves, businesses have unprecedented opportunities to innovatively connect with their target audiences. According to studies, 1.4 billion people are utilizing chatbots for simple inquiries or feedback collection.
By having a set of pre-written responses for your chatbot, you can provide instant answers to your customers, saving your business time and operational costs. Alternatively, you can integrate Shopify with Facebook Messenger if you prefer to engage with customers through social media. While effective communication is essential, enhancing the customer experience on your Shopify store takes it a step further.
Final Thoughts
We hope you found these 10 essential considerations helpful as you prepare to build your Shopify store.
If you’re ready to start your Shopify journey, feel free to contact us. We provide Shopify Development Services to swiftly design and develop your store and marketing and business strategies to support your brand’s growth.