Thinking to take your business to another level?
How about creating an online store?
Believe us- it is the best deal!!
The soon you will create your web presence, then soon you will notice profitable results.
It is not that hard to create an online store or eCommerce website design, especially in the digitized world. Many eCommerce platforms are there that you can use to create the website for your store. But, according to us, Shopify is one of the best and leading platforms!!!
With Shopify, you only have to count the profits, rest it is its responsibility to do all the hard work for you. It has all those features and characteristics that you need to commence an online store.
While looking at its statistics, we have found that:
- It intends to be “the world’s first global retail operating system” in the developing eCommerce platform.
- As per the report from the Shopify Unite Conference held on June 2019, approximately, 820,000 retailers have started support from Shopify (Source: Shopify)
- Currently, there are 5300+Shopify stores all around (Source: Shopify)
- It has included big names, such as Budweiser, Unilever, Nestle, The Economist, WaterAid, Pepsi, Red Bull, Tesla Motors, and Penguin Books. (Sources: Website Builder and Shopify)
- Shopify has made $100 billion globally to date (Source: Shopify)
- In the last year, its number of buyers was 218 million (Source: Shopify)
- In the first quarter of 2019, the total revenue of Shopify was $320.5 million. It is an increase of 50% in the first quarter of 2018 (Source: Shopify)
- And, in the second quarter of 2019, the total revenue was $362.0 million; it is an increase of 48% as compared to 2018 (Source: Shopify)
So far, so good.. right!!
How does one not want to start their online store with the most immeasurable Shopify platform?
But, it might be a daunting task for you as you are not familiar with this platform. Keeping this in mind, we have come up with a list of notable strategies to design and build Shopify store. Have a look!
Things to Consider While Designing the Shopify Store
Choose a Market Segment and Define your Target Audience
The first and foremost thing is to define your niche and identify your target audience and to whom you will sell. With the appropriate market segment, you will be more focused on your aims. It will become easier for you to sell your products or services to potential customers only.
Consider the case when you are selling makeup products, watches, or some garments, and your online store will be all around the sphere and you can get a different type of potential customer. However, if you will keep your business stick to one niche then, it will become seamless for you to manage and sell to the target audience. So, here, our advice to define the market segment and know to whom you want to sell.
Prioritize the Mobile Responsiveness
The Shopify platform is an outstanding website building platform. You only need to drag and drop the fundamentals and use the URL structure to set up. Nowadays, everyone prefers to use mobile for any search, and if your website is not mobile-friendly then, you will not get the desired conversion rate. It is desirable to create an outstanding mobile version of the website with the accompanying desktop version.
Almost 8 out of 10 users (approximately 80%) do not prefer to continue with the website which lacks to display fitly on the device. Generally, Shopify molds the things so that your website displays appropriately on the mobile. Check out its compatibility with the other most-used devices. Below are some of the best mobile-oriented designs you need to implement in your online store:
- Fix the header
- Prominent CTA buttons
- Compelling images
- Include the minimal text
- Lessen the popups
- Different screen resolution optimization
Shopify Hosting
Web hosting should never be neglected because your eCommerce website speed truly relies on this factor. It must be known to you that the customer does not like to stay on that website that takes a long time to load. If the visitors have to wait for more than 3 seconds then they leave the website and they prefer to move to some other website. It, then, increases your website bounce rate.
So, it is better to use Shopify hosting. This includes a Content Distribution Network (CDN) and is, comparatively, fast. CDN is the server network that is positioned everywhere. It commits that the visitors all around should experience the best website loading speed.
Prefer Using the Paid Domain
Though Shopify has a free domain, it is not of any use. It is just like a subdomain and is structured as “xyzstore.myshopify.com”. Undoubtedly, it makes no sense to create your website with a free domain. Even though, every SEO practice you made or is making is only inclined towards the main domain.
So, it is advised to get the paid domain now, it might seem costlier but, it is worth the money. After having this, you can create the website effortlessly, let the SEO operate best, etc.
Get the Best Plugins
Shopify is known for storing the best plugins in its pocket. It always stands out on Community and Apps on the website. Except for Shopify, no other platform provides a good proportion of customization. Here, as per our knowledge, we are mentioning some of the best Shopify plugins:
- Start using the HubSpot Shopify Plugin. It streamlines all of your marketing efforts and eliminates the hard work. This plugin allows you to create a customizable mail and send it to the user right after the cart abandonment. It will make them believe that you are valuing their relationship with you and yes, it is free as well.
- And, the next one is Product Review for Shopify. You can enable the users to give feedback on their purchases in a simple way. This practice will make you aware of the loopholes and allow you to improve accordingly.
- Last is the Social Login Plugin. Get the Oxi Social Login and One-Click Social login Plugin without any doubt. These are the most profitable and accommodate a lot of features that work best for your business. It enables simple authentication prior to buying. The social plugin eliminates the efforts the users put in to purchase by filling the details and using only the one button click checkout process.
Make the Design Appealing
Though, it is not a technical piece of advice, but, it is evident as well. It is essential that you should keep your website design appealing while creating an online store. The users might demand different functionality and requests for the online stores expecting that your design will bring something unique except other designs.
You can figure out the already existing designs and discover the gaps if any. Leverage that and get the design that you think can fulfill the user’s need. Whatever design you will select, assure that it is functional, minimal, and fresh.
Leverage the Shopify Apps
Shopify has given us Apps that are either free or paid. Get benefits from them and add them to your online store to gain more attention. The world is mobile now, every other person looks for the ways that they find comfortable to execute and mobile apps is one of them. By integrating it, you can experience an immense amount of traffic, sales, and higher customer satisfaction rates to your Shopify store. We have curated some of the best Shopify apps that you must integrate into your eCommerce website.
WPForms
Allow your visitors to get in touch with you easily with WPForms. Make contact forms and additional related forms for the eCommerce website.
Plugin SEO
Get to know the SEO issues your website is facing and improve the traffic rate with Plugin App.
TrustPulse
Gain the confidence of your visitors by incorporating TrustPulse. It is a notification app that showcases the real-time activity on your eCommerce website.
Facebook Live Chat
To make your online store thrive, all you need is to give 100% to your customers and the chatbot system is the best to do that. Use the Facebook Live Chat to remain available to those who enquire on Facebook.
The plethora of apps is stored in Shopify that you can integrate easily into your Shopify store. Every eCommerce website has different demands and features or characteristics. You can choose an app that you think is according to the taste that you think you want in your store. Choose wisely.
Learn SEO Fundamentals
Content marketing, link building might consume a lot of time of yours, so, it would be better if you will spare some of your productive time to grasp the basics. Shopify incorporates those tools that can help you to learn. Have a look below to know how to get started:
- Build and offer a sitemap
- Use the best images for website speed optimization
- Use only the related keywords
- Include only the engaging titles and meta tags on every page
It is certain that your eCommerce website needs proper promotion and link building to improve visibility. Besides, you can start implementing SEO in the beginning. Otherwise, you have to spend a lot of your time converting your online store to make it Google -friendly.
Feasible and Reliable Payment Gateways
Every business is incomplete and non-existed without the payment gateways. Provide your visitors with the leading and reliable payments options for your customer so that pay conveniently. Authorize. Net, Stripe, and Paypal are the go-to payment solutions but you can add those that the customers find more comfortable to pay, making it more customizable.
You can also follow the below notable tips for your customers to offer them the payment options:
- Permit the retailers to make an account on the Shopify store and secure the payment details for seamless future shopping.
- Provide them with the broad class of payment gateways to make it easy for the buyers to purchase from your Shopify store.
Promote the Shopify Store
After creating the online store, now, here, comes the time to promote the eCommerce website.
Analyze how promptly you are getting the traffic and how much sales you are securing.
But, it is not an easy process. You need to make efforts so that your Shopify store becomes visible and existable, hence, you need to promote. Considering the case of the start-ups, that cannot spend more on advertising. But, relax!! There are many more ways that you can follow to promote your Shopify store by not hurting your savings.
Like, you can start the promotion of your eCommerce website on the social media handles. Use the offers, discounts, and begin the online content and engage most of the visitors. In addition, you can even commence the giveaways and enable the visitors to participate in. Furthermore, guest posting and blogging can also be used to attract more of the users. Advisably, add only the blogs that are related to the interest of the visitors or the one that is related to recent techniques or technologies.
Over to You!!
The above mentioned 8 strategies are the one that helps you to create a successful Shopify store. Do not stop after implementing it, maintaining an online business is an ongoing process.
The online or Shopify stores give absolute independence to gain a positive customer experience that too with 100% satisfaction rate. We advise you that, despite accompanying the marketplace guidelines, develop your website presence with your terms and conditions and shape your success accordingly.
As an online store owner, you have the freedom to secure conversions and get the new leads. Build an eCommerce website to strengthen the buyers’ needs and motivate your competitors!!
Learn, adapt, implement, and promote!!
We believe that this write-up is beneficial for you. If you have some queries then ask them in the comment section below. Also, share your experience with us if you have created the online store for you!!
Thanks for reading!!
About The Author
Morris Edwards is a Manager at Awebstar, a Shopify development company in Singapore which is dealing with web design & development, mobile app development, SEO, social media marketing, and more. Connect with him on Facebook, Twitter, and Awebstar.com.sg.
