20 Killer Tips to Create a Successful Online Store

Major marketplaces, like Amazon and eBay, come with restrictive seller policies. These venues downplay merchants’ branding to maintain their own homogenous image.

Sellers with their own online stores play a different game. They have complete control over their customers’ experiences. Whether it’s rearranging product placement or highlighting a store sale, merchants can use their website to directly connect with their customers and encourage purchases.

But with so much freedom, online store owners may not know where to begin with curating their shop.

To start attracting buyers and retaining loyal customers, here are our 20 killer tips for creating a successful online store. These strategies cover how buyers experience each element of your online store to explain how each aspect should be crafted to attract buyers and drive up sales.

By following these strategies, sellers can target customers’ interests through their online store so that their business stands out amongst less savvy merchants.

1. Engaging Web Design

It doesn’t matter if you have the best product possible in your niche and the best customer service on top of that—if your store’s web design is lousy, your online business presence is doomed. According to a Kissmetrics study, 93% of buyers consider visual appearance to be the most important factor when making a purchase.

To create a profitable online store, you can either pay a pretty penny to a web designer or take it upon yourself to learn to code. Alternatively, you can just get a ready-made template and customize it to your needs. Fortunately, there are thousands of great ecommerce templates on the web provided by sites like TemplateMonster, TonyTemplates, Apollotheme, and others that have clean designs, intuitive layouts, and follow the latest web design trends.

Design elements should captivate visitors, such as using full-width images and avoiding distraction with minimal text. Here is a design example that Reebok chose for their online store:

And this is a ready-made option for your online store:

Here are a few actionable tips for improving your web design:

• Your online store can be designed by a professional, by yourself if you know how to code, or with an ecommerce store template.
• Web design should captivate site visitors’ attention. Engage customers with full-width images and minimal text.

2. An Awesome “About Us” Page

If a visitor goes to your “About Us” page, that means they are already interested in you and are giving you a chance to prove to him or her that your product is the best. What you need to do is clearly spell out what you are, what you do, and, most importantly, what you offer to the clients. All testimonials, achievements, and any kind of social proof is welcome there.

Make sure you don’t waste this opportunity as it may lead to gaining a customer.Your contact information should be clear and easy to find on your about page and throughout your website as well. Be sure to mention your:

• Contact email
• Address
• Social media channels

Packing your “About” page with too much information can be overwhelming for site visitors. Some online stores, like Tens in the example below, opt for a minimalist design to keep information clear and easily comprehensible.

“Contact Us” information is usually placed at the bottom of a website, and users are used to finding it there.

Here are a few actionable tips for creating your “About Us” page:

• Include basic information about your business on the page, such as your contact information, address, and social media accounts.
• Avoid cluttering the “About Us” page with too much information. Keep visitors engaged with a minimal design.

3. Partner with Other Brands.

Giving your hard-earned money to a little-known company isn’t easy for most buyers. Establish your reputation by showing which companies are working with you. They don’t necessarily need to be on the scale of a Coca-Cola or Apple, but even small companies can add a degree of trustworthiness to your enterprise.

The more partners you have, the better. This is how Amasty shows their established relationships with partners:

Here are a few actionable tips for partnering with other brands and influencers:

• Highlight partner companies on your homepage to immediately showcase your reputation to site visitors.
• If you have a large amount of partners, showcase them all. The more partners you have, the more buyer trust you’ll build.

4. Offer Excellent Online Support

Your consumers need to know they will have support after they make a purchase, if needed. Guaranteeing troubleshooting after the purchase and consulting before the purchase can convert potential buyers into loyal, returning customers.

The most comprehensive, helpful type of support is a live-chat feature that works 24/7. This tool can increase your site-wide conversion by 10% or more. If you don’t have the resources to offer round-the-clock support, you should still provide some type of service to help people during working hours.

As an example, check out how clothing store, GitmanBros, offers live chat to their customers:

The company keeps the chat feature easily accessible, yet unobtrusive to buyers in the bottom lefthand corner.

Here are a few actionable tips for offering excellent online support:

• Offer support at all stages of the shopping experience to encourage new buyers to make their first purchase and returning customers to continue making purchases.
• Make your customer support features, whether that’s a phone line or a chat box, visible from the homepage so that buyers are aware of those services.

5. Provide Popular Payment Options

No online store can exist without payments. Offer a wide variety of popular payment options for your customers so they can always easily make a purchase.

PayPal reigns as the go-to payment solution, but there are other popular options for your business to consider. Check out Entrepreneur’s list of 15 other widely-used payment methods to see if there’s another service that fits your business’ needs.

Here are a few actionable tips for providing payment options:

• Allow sellers to create an account on your store and save their payment information to make future purchases more seamless.
• Offer a wide variety of popular payment options so that every consumer can easily make a purchase on your store.

6. Advertise on Social Media

Advertising on social media channels is a powerful way to connect with lots of potential customers in creative, fun ways. Social media advertising can be anything from a simple Facebook feed post to a taco-shaped lens on Snapchat.

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Use tools, like Google Analytics, to track which channels your target customers are using most, and focus your marketing efforts on these platforms. If you get confused by the relatively new terrain of social media, check out these guides to Facebook advertising, Instagram advertising, and Snapchat advertising to get started.

Here are a few actionable tips for advertising on social media.

• Social media marketing allows for a lot of creativity, so try to implement the personality of your key buyers into your ads.
• Use social media analytics to track the success of your ads and form strategies on how you can improve future promotions.

7. A Useful, SEO-Driven Blog

Running a blog is an opportunity to generate more store traffic. Posts that contain SEO keywords and contain useful information for consumers are likely to rank high in search engine results. Blog posts that rank well and encourage people to visit your site are a stepping stone to people visiting your product pages and completing purchases.

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A blog is also a medium to connect with audiences on a deep level. Seeing how customers respond to the content that you produce can inform your strategies for meeting buyers’ needs and wants. Blog posts build buyer trust when they provide some sort of value to the reader, like offering expert advice on your product usage or an industry-related topic.

Here are a few actionable tips for creating a store blog:

• Use SEO tools to measure the monthly search volume and keyword difficulty of terms. Terms with high monthly search volumes and high difficulty ratings are going to be more challenging to rank for.
• Use Google Analytics to track the page views of your blog posts. Consider past posts that received high numbers of views when planning future content.

8. Build Buyer Trust with Product Reviews

Reviews and ratings of your products boost your trustworthiness immensely. Online shoppers can’t meet sellers in-person, so they rely on other buyers’ feedback to assess merchants. Ratings on product pages save consumers’ time by quickly showing what other customers think about the product.

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Product reviews are more convincing when they’re plentiful. To encourage more feedback, don’t be shy about asking your customers to leave a review after making a purchase. Customers who are satisfied with your product often won’t consider leaving a review because everything is already fine. Give them a gentle push, and they’ll likely be glad to share their positive experience with others.

Here are a few actionable tips for using product reviews:

• Indicate the average rating and number of reviews at the top of each product page and at the bottom where you display the content of the reviews to increase the feedback’s visibility.
• Incentivize leaving a review by offering buyers a small discount after they make a purchase if they leave feedback.

9. Make Your Site SEO-Friendly

Your online store has to receive traffic in order for purchases to happen. The key to generating traffic? Search engine optimization. By incorporating SEO keywords into your product titles and descriptions, your site is more likely to rank higher in search engine results. The increased visibility is the key ingredient for greater site visits and more conversions.

If you’re unsure about how to find SEO-friendly keywords or how to incorporate them into your store, check out this helpful guide on SEO optimization of ecommerce websites.

Here are a few actionable tips for making your site SEO-friendly:

• Use SEO tools to find keywords that have high-enough monthly search volumes and low enough keyword difficulty for your site to rank.
• Type in SEO keywords you’re considering adding to your product pages to see which results you’ll be competing with. If the results are major sites, consider changing your term to something less competitive.

10. Ensure Your Store is Mobile-Responsive

Mobile shopping accounted for 30% of online purchases last year. This figure is only increasing—Business Insider predicts that by 2020 mobile shopping will account for 45% of all ecommerce shopping.

With the growing use of phones for online shopping, merchants have to ensure that their site design is mobile-friendly to make sure buyers can make purchases, no matter what device they’re using. Tech-savvy sellers can check operating system requirements, like these iOS guidelines, to ensure that their site is responsive. Merchants can also use online store design templates that are already set to be mobile-responsive to make their site device-friendly.

Here are a few actionable tips for ensuring your site is mobile-responsive.

• Opt for vertical designs over horizontal designs for easier scrolling and viewing your content on phone screens.
• Test out your store’s mobile responsiveness by loading it onto a phone and browsing through to check for errors.

11. Track Analytics and Iterate

Online store owners can’t improve their growth strategies without monitoring their progress. The best way to track your selling activity and customers’ behavior is to use a tool like Google Analytics. This program provides sellers with clear metrics about their store, such as the percentage of product sales, the number of site page visits, and the number of abandoned shopping carts. You can easily set up Analytics for your online store by following these instructions.

Continually track your selling metrics with Analytics so that you can form long-term insights on how to engage customers more effectively and encourage more purchases. Merchants who need help setting up Analytics or are unsure about how to form data-based insights should check out our guide to using the tool with your online store.

Here are a few actionable tips for tracking and iterating on seller activity with Google Analytics:

• When you set up Analytics with your store, enable the “enhanced ecommerce tracking” feature for a wide range of insights on your seller activity.
• Create Segments on Google Analytics to form data-driven insights on your key buyer groups. Instructions to set up Segments are here.

12. Offer Free Shipping.

Thanks to Amazon Prime, free shipping is now an expectation of online shoppers. The added cost of standard shipping can easily dissuade buyers today from completing their purchase at checkout. Sellers who can afford to offer free shipping should provide the service if they aren’t already to incentivize purchases.

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While the upfront cost of offering free shipping may hurt at first, many merchants see a greater return with increased purchases after offering the policy. To make sure customers are noticing your generous policy, highlight on your online store that you offer free shipping, as Thrive Market does in the photo above on their home page.

Here are a few actionable tips for attracting buyers with your shipping policy.

• Offer free shipping to lower the overall cost of your item for buyers and incentivize the purchase.
• Highlight throughout your online store that you offer free shipping so buyers are motivated to keep shopping.

13. Build Your Outreach List

Growing your business involves more than your customers — you also have to reach out to individuals in your industry that can help you reach more buyers within your target audience. Networking with the right groups allows merchants to generate product buzz and extend their reach to connect with as many customers as possible. Sellers should consider reaching out to:

• Traditional reporters — writers at publications who specialize in your industry and can create content about your products
• Industry bloggers — writers who create content on blogs that focus on your industry and showcase products like yours
• Social media influencers — people who comment about your industry on social media and have a large number of followers
• Similar entrepreneurs — like-minded entrepreneurs who are engaged in your industry and are familiar with your products

These four groups can quickly spread the word around your product, so it’s worth reaching out to network and share why you might be valuable to work with.

Here are a few actionable tips for building your outreach list:

• Use tools like Buzzsumo and Voila Norbert to find influencers in your industry that you could reach out to.
• Organize the individuals who you want to reach out to with specialized categories, like their number of followers or likelihood of responding.

14. Use Ready-to-Go Storefront Tools

Merchants who don’t have a coding background should consider using software, like Shopify and BigCommerce, to set up their online store. These programs have built-in store templates, so sellers can easily customize their sites without any knowledge of programming or graphic design.

Shopify allows sellers to easily customize their online store design.

For sellers interested in Shopify, check out our guide on the platform’s free store themes to start taking advantage of the software’s design tools.

Here are a few actionable tips for using ready-to-go storefront tools:

• Make sure the design of your chosen template aligns with your key buyers’ personalities and your brand image. Software, like Shopify and BigCommerce, will typically have recommendations about which types of businesses are suited for each design.
• If you pay for a Shopify theme or other software template, consider the cost of a graphic designer as well. A designer is going to be more expensive than almost all templates, but it’s worth knowing the cost difference to assess the value of the template.

15. Keep an Eye on the Competition

Customers browse through online stores looking for the lowest prices and the best overall shopping experiences. To keep buyers attracted to their store, merchants should identify shops that are similar to their own business that they can compare against. Are these stores offering 60-day or 30-day return policies? Do they offer free shipping or only paid options? Figuring out what makes competitors more advantageous enables sellers to determine what they need to change about their business to keep returning customers loyal and attract new buyers.

Here are a few actionable tips for assessing your competition:

• Search for products like yours on major marketplaces, not only on other online stores. Venues like Amazon and eBay are great indicators of competitive pricing rates for your products and industry. Use their rates as a benchmark for your own prices to attract more buyers.
• Consider the design of competitors’ sites, not just their product offerings. Note how it might be more user-friendly than your store and how it might be attracting buyers.

16. Use High-Res Photos.

Humans are visual creatures. We process images in 1/10 of a second and understand visual information 60,000 times faster than words. With this natural tendency towards visuals, product images make a strong, immediate impression on buyers. It’s critical to use clear, high-resolution photos that highlight the products’ details to quickly attract buyers without losing their attention.

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Show multiple angles of your product with photos so buyers can fully imagine the item and are aware of all of its details. Unable to see the product in-person, buyers will feel more secure with their online purchase if they have a complete visual understanding of the item.

Here are a few actionable tips for using high-res product photos:

• Enable a 360-degree photo tool on product pages so buyers can see the entire view of a product.
• Enable a zoom feature on product photos so buyers can examine your items in more detail.

17. Offer Incentives.

Online store owners don’t have to worry about marketplace rules that limit what they can include on product pages or in communication to buyers. Merchants with stores should take advantage of this control by offering incentives to buyers. Whether it’s a pop-up discount at your store’s homepage or a promotional email about an ongoing sale, sellers should actively reach out to buyers with different types of incentives to make purchases.

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Merchants should use data-driven tools (see tip 11) to segment their customers and target incentives at different buyer groups. For example, you might send an email offering a discount on a first purchase to site visitors who visited product pages but never completed a purchase.

Here are a few actionable tips for offering incentives:

• Use pop-up discount boxes on your site occasionally, not frequently. Bombarding your site visitors with pop-ups will likely irritate them and drive them away from your store.
• Track which coupon codes are used most frequently to determine which promotions encouraged the most purchases and should be used again in the future.

18. Encourage Social Sharing

Organic word-of-mouth marketing on social media can drive your ecommerce business growth. Public discussions of your brand and products on social media channels serve as social proof — the psychological phenomenon of people assuming others’ behavior reflects correct behavior. Online buyers can’t see your products in-person, so they consider what other customers have to say about your business on Facebook to determine whether they should make a purchase.

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Encourage social media buzz around your product by starting a campaign that encourages sharing. For example, a brand might offer customers an entry into a contest if they leave a comment on a social media post or tag a friend. Merchants should also encourage social sharing by making their social media channels easily accessible on their site.

Here are a few actionable tips for encouraging social sharing:

• Don’t limit social sharing to buyers! Reach out to other brands you’ve partnered with, and encourage them to share information about your business or tag your brand in their social media content.
• Don’t break the chain of sharing. If someone mentions your brand on social media, try to continue engaging with tactics like re-tweeting or commenting underneath the post.

19. Take Advantage of Email Marketing

Email marketing is an easy way for merchants to build relationships with their customers. Merchants can send out targeted messages to segments of buyers that address each group’s specific wants. By appealing to buyers’ interests, email marketing is a powerful tool for encouraging sales and increasing revenue.

To get started, you’ll need to collect the emails of buyers and make sure that they want to receive messages from you. There are plenty of opportunities to ask buyers whether they want to receive email notifications, such as at the checkout process or even in a pop-up window while they’re browsing.

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Not every buyer will agree to sign up for your email list, but the group of customers that do will be an eager set of buyers who are excited about your brand and will likely respond well to your email marketing.

Here are a few actionable tips for using email marketing:

• Use an email marketing tool, like Campaign Monitor, to track the success of your messages, such as how many times it was opened or which links were clicked most frequently.
• Track which customers unsubscribe from your email list with email marketing software. Using other information from their buyer profile, try to infer why they might’ve unsubscribed and how you can use that knowledge to prevent future cancellations.

20. Offer Generous Refund and Money-Back Guarantee Policies

Buying a product online with a limited return policy is risky. The customer can’t see the item in-person, so they have to hope that the product is actually as-described. With the possibility of the product not being up to their standards, most buyers won’t buy an online product if returns aren’t accepted.

Sellers can build buyer trust and incentivize purchases by offering generous return and money-back guarantee policies. Allowing customers to return an item if they change their mind or if it doesn’t match the product description shows other consumers that you trust your buyers and want to provide them with value.

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A money-back guarantee is very important. You need to give your customers a way to respond in case they do not like the product. It doesn’t mean they will necessarily ask for a refund. Of course, some of them will, but most people just need to know there is a back-up option. People, by nature, are not risk takers, so this flexible payment policy will be attractive to them. As a result, you’ll get more customers than you would if you didn’t have a money-back guarantee.

Here are a few actionable tips for return and money-back guarantee policies:

• Create a policies page on your site to describe the exact terms and conditions of acceptable returns and money-back guarantee claims. Your customers will appreciate the transparency of the page when trying to understand their orders.
• Consider offering free shipping on returns. Providing customers with free returns is an added cost for merchants, but offering the policy also brings the return of encouraging brand loyalty with great customer service.

Curate Your Store for More Conversions

Online stores give merchants complete autonomy over the customers’ experiences. Instead of following a marketplace’s policies, a seller can set up their own online shop by their terms to shape their buyers’ product interactions.

Merchants with this freedom as an online store owner can encourage more conversions if they know how to craft each element of their shop. By following the strategies outlined in this guide, merchants can become more aware of how customers perceive every store element and apply that knowledge to create their shop. Curating an online store to align with key buyers’ wants and motivations gives sellers an edge over less mindful competitors.

Companies looking to start or grow their businesses online are taking advantage of the Shopify technology to set up a store and sell digital products and physical goods.  Small to medium-size brands use this e-commerce platform mainly because it is affordable. Since Custom website builds are costly, more than 1 million brands prefer getting a Shopify domain. 

You can do the following with your Shopify online store:

• Add stock
• Track inventory 
• Complete sales

As more companies continue to invest in Shopify, the most frustrating thing about getting a store is having a bunch of visitors or viewers but no actual sales. Some merchants are spending a lot of money to get people into their stores, only for them not to buy any of the available products. This situation is common in Shopify online stores that have low conversation rates. In this case, Conversion rate optimization is required to get back your ROI. 

In the eCommerce industry, a Conversion Rate is usually a percentage ratio of the number of visitors purchasing the number of people visiting the store. If you are using Shopify and Google Analytics, then your Conversion Rate is a result of your transactions over sessions. Improving this rate is all about increasing the value or quality of the traffic coming to your store. 

What Is a Good Conversion Rate?

Based on case studies the average eCommerce conversion rate is slightly above 2 %. However, conversation rates vary from one industry to another; therefore, you should only compare your results with the average rate for your industry. Also, mobile conversation rates are usually lower than desktop conversion rates. 

No matter what figure you have as your conversion rate, there is always room for improvement. There are three things you can improve to get a better rate: your brand or product, traffic sources, and the customer journey or funnel (marketing and sales). 

Shopify Store Funnel 

The first place that most Shopify merchants start with when it comes to Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is the store funnel. It is important to consider the journey your customer goes through from the time they are aware of your product or brand to the time they decide to purchase your product or subscribe to your services. In the eCommerce world, the customer journey is a process known as the marketing and sale funnel. 

According to research, only 2% of purchases are made at the first contact customers make with a product or brand. Rarely do prospects buy a product the first time they visit a store, research shows that most of them will need between five and eight extra contacts moment before they decide to make a purchase.  However, this number can reduce by half if you can attract the attention and interest of your potential customers and gain their trust. 

In real life, the funnel process for a retail store will have the following steps:

• walking into your store
• get attracted by your product 
• look at your product 
• put the product in the cart
• walk to the checkout 
• complete the purchase

On the other hand, the funnel of an online store is as follows:

• Find your store or product through search & advertising
• Go through the product page
• Read the product description and customer reviews 
• Add the product to the cart
• Proceed to checkout
• Make the purchase

Marketing and Sales Funnels

Marketing gurus and experts have come up with countless models to help explain the customer journey when it comes to marketing. AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action) is one such model that most digital marketers use to increase their website conversion rates. Each stage of the model has its unique approach and message that needs to be conveyed. 

For a marketing funnel, your main focus is to attract potential customers from a broader audience. Your efforts in this process are to communicate the problems and opportunities that your potential customers have without mentioning your product or services as the solution. The tools you use in this funnel should help you increase visibility and gain a competitive edge over your competitors on Shopify. 

Marketing and sales share the same funnel. The marketing funnel transforms into a sales funnel when your leads turn to prospects. At this stage potential customers are aware of your brand and have developed an interest in your product. The stages available in a sales funnel are designed to make the prospect develop a need for your product and eventually make a purchase after providing the necessary information on how your product or solution can help the customer. 

Merging the marketing and sales funnel yields a six stages model, AICIEP (Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Intent, Evaluation, and Purchase). 

• Awareness 

The first step of the Shopify store conversion rate optimization is getting people to visit your website. Identifying your target audience will help you get the right traffic to your online store. Your goal is not to get the highest number of views but to increase your sales. There are different traffic sources you can use and most of the popular ones are social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. 

Creating brand awareness is part of lead generation. During this process, you will need marketing activities and tools such as content marketing, Affiliate marketing, inbound marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), online advertising, viral campaigns, and more to attract prospects. 

• Interest  

Once your potential customers are aware of your brand and product, you’ll need to develop a thriving relationship with them. At this point, you can nurture your leads by using tailored content to introduce your brand, product, or services to capture the interest of your prospects. Find the best way to establish a connection with your target audience.

Before a prospect develops an interest in your product, they need to trust you first. Having trust badges in your store is one way of appearing trustworthy but that is not enough, potential customers need to know more about you before they direct their focus on your product. Prospects wish to know your background experience and reputation. 

For trust building you may need the following:

• About page
• User-generated content or testimonials 
• Returns and refunds policy
• Contact Page
• Customer support (live chat, phone number, email)
• High-quality content

These are some of the things you need to consider when coming up with an effective marketing and sale funnel for your Shopify store:

• Your potential customer’s behavior 
• Where you are likely to find them 
• How your services or products can help them
• The message you wish to communicate in each stage
• The phases or stages you would wish them to go through 
• The communication channels you would use to respond to them

• Desire 

When your potential customer has reached this stage of your funnel, you may need to work on your best-converting channels to get them to the Action stage. The most promising channels at this stage are email marketing and referral marketing or affiliate marketing. Free shipping and return policy can easily make your conversion rate go up.  Since people love free things, adding promotions and discount codes to your sales funnel can improve your sales. 

• Action

The last step of the CRO optimization is to optimize the checkout flow.  Long or complicated checkout process, high cost (shipping, tax, and fees), and sign up requirements are the top reasons why most prospects abandon their carts during checkout.  You should make the checkout process simple and less involving. 

Shopify Store Optimization Considerations 

1. Landing page optimization

The Conversion rate optimization process aims to reduce the number of clicks a potential customer has to make before they purchase your product. You can achieve this by making the product page your landing page. Normally, this is achieved by using outbound or Interruption marketing through advertising. However, your home page should not necessarily be the first page that customers see when they visit your store. 

Characteristics of an effective landing-product page:

• Attractive layout 
• Cohesive color scheme 
• Detailed product descriptions 
• Use of high-quality and resolution visuals (images, videos)
• reviews, testimonials, and ratings

2. User-Generated Data

Most buyers rely on informational social influence or Social proof to make the last decision to purchase.The use of User-generated data (UGC) on your Shopify store can help you gain the trust of potential customers. When prospects see other people buy or use a product, they develop a fear of missing out (FOMO).  This type of peer pressure is what makes potential customers want to jump on the bandwagon. This effect can be achieved through the use of customer reviews, testimonials, awards, and social feeds. 

Displaying product reviews can increase your Shopify Store conversion because most customers will prefer to buy the product that has reviews over the one that does not have any. You can at least install review collection apps such as JudgeMe on your site. 

3. Mobile optimization 

More than 50% of website visitors use their mobile devices to access these platforms.  You might be losing the right audience by failing to make your website mobile-friendly. Adding a responsive design to your Shopify store website allows your potential customer to view your platform from different mobile device screen sizes. Therefore, browsing your online site through any mobile device should provide a pleasant user experience.  

4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Your Shopify store needs to appear first on the result page when prospects search for items related to your products. For this reason, you can optimize your website for various search engines such as Google. The use of Keywords or phrases and link building has worked for many merchants using Shopify. SEO works best if you have quality content- solid grammar, more conversational, and informative. 

5. Analytics

Numbers do not lie if you can analyze them to identify the pattern. Most Shopify stores with high conversion rates use analytical data to understand the behaviours of their prospects. This data can be obtained from tools such as Shopify and Google Analytics.  Data from your Shopify store should help you perform a conversion analysis.

6. Retargeting or remarketing 

Abandoned carts may not mean lost money, you can still help your visitor complete the transaction by sending them retargeting ads. Abandoned cart emails can be used to encourage potential customers to interact more with your brand before making a decision.

7. Performance optimization 

The loading speed of your Shopify store does affect your conversion rate such that an improvement in the performance of the site brings more sales and revenue per session. You can run your site through the Shopify Analyzer and see what can be improved. Every second of a prospect counts, so the less time it takes to load your website the lower the bounce rate.  

8. Navigation optimization 

Moving from one step to another should be obvious to your potential customer. By eliminating distractions and creating clear navigation links your visitors can easily get what they want with ease.  The most important thing to do about navigation is to create clear calls to action buttons that stand out prominently from the rest of the page. You can take navigation to the next level by providing clear directions. 

9. Design optimization 

When it comes to design, you should consider modifying your color scheme and site layout. You can achieve this through web design elements such as logos, themes, custom icons, Lifestyle images, and graphics.  Your Shopify store outlook should reflect your brand’s vibe. 

10. A/B test

During a Conversion rate optimization (CRO) process, A/B tests are used to evaluate the performance of different changes in your Shopify store. It is through this type of test that you can confirm that a specific change will lead to an increase in the conversion rate of your site.

Conclusion

Optimizing your entire marketing and sales funnels can help you improve your conversion rate and generate sales and revenue.  You need to take a step-by-step approach when optimizing the various parts of the customer journey, it should not be overwhelming. The best strategy is to observe the behaviors of your potential customers and identify areas in your funnel that need some CRO optimization.

Do you know how to build a Shopify store? How can you make a high converting store? Please take a deep breath because we are here to help you out by providing simple ways and tricks that enhance your Shopify stores’ conversion rates.

Before Shopify brand building, state your vision, mission, and right expectations about the store. You should know the customer’s essentials and requirements. Make them your target and then introduce a product through your store, which solves your customer’s problems and give them satisfaction on spending their money.

Make sure to build a store that can enhance conversion rate because if not, then there would be no value for your store in the market, as every customer prioritize their necessities.

If you want to know how you can build a high-converting Shopify store and how to keep the stability between traffic and conversion rate on your Shopify store website, then keep scrolling. Happy reading!

Why Should You Build a Shopify Store?

Shopify is an E-commerce Software to provide you the ability to sell the products according to your customer’s demand. It sounds like a great idea and easy to do, but hard to implement. You can’t underestimate the amount of work, consistency, market research, skill, and budget Shopify stores required.

But if you are determined and plan your product requirements according to audience demands and needs, you will surely be successful in the coming years. You should have a skill and strength in your Shopify store, which can pull the visitors to your site and make them your regular customers.

Shopify Store Setup

You can conveniently set up your Shopify brand building if you are clear with your market research and audience requirements. If your product has a potential and purpose that every customer needs, you have to set up your Shopify store and start selling your product.

You can do the following steps to set up your Shopify store:

• Go For a Free Trial of Shopify
• Add Products on Shopify
• Upload Products Photos
• Set Price of your Products
• Create key Pages for your store
• Choose your theme & Do Customization
• Shipping Setup on Shopify store
• Configuration of Tax Settings
• Payment setup of Shopify store
• Launch your Shopify store

After your Shopify store launch, you have to remove your password page and sign-in to start your store again. Now you are ready for business!

Shopify Store Optimization

You need to know how you can optimize your Shopify store site, which helps you rank your store site. First of all, your store page’s structure and the content you choose to write are vital for optimization. Don’t make the process of shopping longer by adding categories and subcategories. Just keep the structure simple and attractive.

You can enhance traffic on your site by improving the user experience. Besides, you can easily do this by using a fast and mobile-friendly theme, avoid using meaningless sliders, and make your site easy to navigate so that users want to spend time on your store.

For your Shopify store optimization, make sure to choose the right target keywords when you choose a product to sell. Also, make sure to give the audience what they need the most. By choosing targeted keywords, you can conveniently optimize your Shopify product pages.

The most important thing you need to optimize is your Shopify store’s content because what you write about your product and your experiences make the people stay on your site. You can also boost your Shopify store optimization by using different SEO apps and tools.

Make Your Shopify Store High Converting

After Shopify store setup and optimization, your business is just going to start now. It would help if you had to balance your Shopify store optimization and its high conversion. If your Shopify store is highly converting, it indicates that people want what you are providing them, and they are happy to avail of your products.

We can help you out on how to build a Shopify store, a high converting store. Just go with the flow, and you will know your answer.

Engage your visitors

You should have the skill to attract user attention. There should be something unique in your product which the audience finds extraordinary. Try to relate to the audience and make them visit your store again and again. An emotional story to tell your customers which link to your product might bring immense profit to your Shopify store.

Product Selection

You need to select your products during the Shopify store setup carefully. You should know your target customers who need your product the most and how they can be useful. This leads you to attract more traffic to your Shopify store and ultimately provide a high conversion rate to your site.

Target your customer requirements and problems. Give them a solution, and then the customer is all yours because he will develop trust with your store’s products. Don’t go for random selection for selling products. Search the market, target the problems, and provide the solution by giving the needed product.

Color Selection

Your store should look fantastic and attractive to amaze even first-time visitors. Your right color selection makes your store site outstanding and pleasant to the eyes. Use fonts that are easy to read.

The color selection speaks about your choices and values. Besides, it can make the visitors experience more pleasant. Use clear and high-quality images on your homepage. Also, put your products into categories because, in this way, it is easier to find them.

Image Selection

You should know about the saying that the picture speaks louder than the words. Therefore, choose clear and high-quality photos of your product for your store. For Shopify store optimization, use the Alt text in image settings and write about your product image in a way that can help the visitors more to understand the meaning and purpose of your product image.

You should not select a large size of images for your product. If you want to edit the images you selected, you can go to the settings to resize your product image.

Attractive Homepage

It will look good if you provide a slideshow of your products on your homepage. The visitors can choose in one look at what they want to buy from your store. Also, use neat page headers and drop-down navigation menus, which avoid any disturbance and provide an excellent visitor experience.

Provide the search bar at the top of the homepage so visitors can easily search for the product they specifically required. At the related links with a specific product, if a customer is looking for an item, they should easily access the other related products.

Call-to-Action Buttons

CTA buttons provide more reliability to your Shopify stores because it provides a clear view of what you are offering in your store. The button-like ‘click to see more features’ helps you reach out for more information about the product. Other buttons like ‘buy now’ ‘show similar products’ give you more clarity about what more the store has for you.

Use CTA buttons to produce precise results. Commercialize your Shopify store by Facebook ads also bring traffic to your store. Using CTA buttons attracts more visitors, such as the button shows’ limited sale offer’, which immediately attracts the audience’s interest. You can easily regulate your updates regarding the store by using CTA buttons for your regular customers.

Improve your Product Pages

Use a unique product title and detailed description of your product with the option of clicking to see more features. Every visitor has a different perspective to see a product. Some of them encourage shorter descriptions, while others want every detail of the product before buying.

Keep your product lists full even if the product is out of stock, which helps avoid any distortion in the store’s design. Also, set up an option for a customer to sign-in to be easier for you to track them when the product is available. You should choose a high converting theme which helps to bring more results.

Vital Products

You should know the psychological trick to make the customer act quickly and buy the product immediately. You can create this urgency by selecting a few terms to attract the attention of visitors. Use words like ‘now,’ ‘quickly,’ and ‘instant’ in your product pages. You can also add the limited time offer stock or free delivery till the end of the month.

Limited Products 

During the Shopify store setup, you can easily calculate the stock and the profit report. At the same time, you can label your product as ‘only one left’ or ‘limited supply’ to make the visitors buy the product this instant.

In some cases, it can also be a loss because sometimes a customer wants a product in a bulk form, but due to this type of label, the customer may lose their interest in your product.

Make a simple checkout process.

The long checkout process makes the customers frustrated, and many visitors back out and don’t buy anything just because of the annoying checkout process. Instead of asking for personal information from the customer, have a quick summary of a customer’s shopping detail.

Ask for an email and provide options for payment. Also, provide customers with options to deselect the selected items or change their payment method without returning to the first page. Show a progress slide that gives relief to customers that they are closer to finishing the process. Provide receipt of shopping through the customer’s phone number and email.

Show Exit-intent Ads

During your Shopify store setup, install a set up whenever any visitor is about to leave the store. Your store site should pop-up an ad that provides other options for visitors to look at your visitor’s previous product searches.

You can also use the pop-up ad as a reminder to give them a discount offer. You can also ask the visitors to subscribe or follow your store on social media in a pop-up message before leaving your Shopify store.

Go for Full Package Products

You need to search for the products that give a full package instead of buying only one product. Organize your structure of pages to keep the products close to each other. If you want to buy a mobile phone and saw high-quality earbuds, then you might want to buy them both—charm the customer with full package offers.

Retargeting Customers 

Given the technology nowadays, you can easily retarget your recent customers through Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Google by regulating ads. You can create targeted messages using Shopify apps, which are free of charge, and reach out to your customers who had not come to your Shopify store for months.

Give Unboxing Surprises

Make your unboxing or product memorable. It can enhance your store’s high conversion rate even if you have done your Shopify store optimization. Customize your packages and leave a beautiful note for your every customer to make them feel special.

Unboxing a package is like a gift to yourself. The customers are already happy and satisfied after shopping, but if your shipping service improves a little and gives impressive packaging, it will surely win your customer’s heart.

Are you thinking of setting up the most popular and most accessible e-commerce store through Shopify? Or are you just done with basics and struggling with technicalities? Wait! Let me help you! You should hire Shopify store experts. Don’t know who they are? They are the expert community helping you add value and revenue both to your Shopify setup is less time and still stressing out? Let me tell you; we are here to cover you up with your struggle. In this article, we will be providing you all the details of hiring Shopify experts for your Shopify store setup.

However, the word “one-man army” pleases the most but hits differently the same as in setting up a Shopify store on your own. It is challenging to wear different caps on your own. For instance, it is not an easy task for a person being, developer, designer, marketer, CEO, and manager to his setup. It would be best if you always had a team of expert people by your side so that you can add the desired value as well as the revenue you dreamt about.

Lets’ be honest; it might be a bit pricy or out of budget to start a setup to heir individuals. Here’s what Shopify store expert comes in. You can hire a Shopify expert as they understand what a company needs and will work out to put some burden off your shoulders.

Let me tell you who exactly Shopify store experts are:

Why should you hire a Shopify Expert?

There is a simple answer to this. At the start of any business, may it be Shopify, you always need solid planning, best marketing, and working strategies. You may think you need heir few designers, marketers, and managers would be enough for you to work with. But, every time, it is not the case. Before working with any of the designers, marketers, etc., your needs have to ensure their expertise. This is the spot where Shopify experts play a significant role. They have experience in working for Shopify setups and have mastered the art of their field, may it be SEO, managing, designing, or so on.

Before hiring any regular person for your setup, you may think thousands of times; however, you can go with the flow in Experts case. Any ordinary person can be the hole to your ship, which you cannot save from sinking with your valuable goods. Where, on the other hand, Shopify store experts can be sparkle to the flourishing business.

Let me discuss what value these experts add to your growing Shopify e-commerce development solution.

4 Benefits to Hire Shopify Experts 

1. Saves time:

Time can be precious to many moments, which cannot be wasted finding answers to the mysteries that have experts. Different experts require a different amount of time according to the task. Moreover, you can approach them with your task; assigning them a particular task for a particular period helps you look towards other issues. However, in business, especially in startups, we sometimes add more value while neglecting the vital factor. So, by hiring experts, you may get plenty of time to look forward to other factors.

2. Quality work:

Being a beginner or a learner, you always experiment with the work and won’t provide quality to your Shopify store. Whereas hiring an expert may lead you towards the quality of work without experimenting or hurting your back. The expert’s community will ensure fulfilling all your demands and will work every step towards the betterment. Heir, a Shopify expert developer, helps you develop the best out of your work. They will ensure everything to be perfect from head to toe.

3. Improved customer experience:

They help in enhancing your customer’s experiences. Whenever you convey your customer’s demand to experts, they try to work in more well-mannered and customer-oriented ways. This effort gradually improves your customer’s satisfaction as well as their experience with your store.

4. 24/7 availability:

The most beneficial advantage of hiring experts is that they will be available 24/7 at your services. You can continuously ask them for advice or the solution rather than sticking at the point. This can be the best way to help you update your Shopify store.

These were some of many after the benefits of hiring Shopify experts for your store. If you dig further, you may require to breakdown your cost factor to heir these experts.

Cost Factors to Hire an Expert

The help from these Shopify expert developers may not be free of cost; moreover, you have to break down your expected cost before committing the pay to Shopify experts.

However, the plans available on Shopify allows you to choose according to your budget resources. You can select them by the regard of your essentials and finance. However, this whole process can be explained to you by Shopify expert developers. But still, you have to consider the following things.

Things to be considered include:

 

What type of store do you need?

The type of your Shopify stores matters a lot while figuring out the costs for your experts. The more you ask your Shopify store to convey, the more technical issues your experts need to face. However, Shopify experts develop’ estimated price demands upon the task they have been asked for.

 

What kind of expert do you require?

The second most important thing to consider is that you what expertise level you need. Or what expertise level you can afford. However, the beginner level may have fewer prices you can offer, and the prices gradually get increased with the expertise level.

These are the top two things that need to be considered before hiring and paying your experts. These considerations need time to examine what your store needs and what level of expertise you can afford.

After considering, let’s come to the basics of breaking down your figure:

Basics costing of hiring a Shopify Expert

According to their expertise level and experience in a particular field, all the Shopify experts developer has their price lists according to their expertise level and experience.

Some of them offer you $500 – $1500 for a properly customized outlet—however, other experts are offering low rates to your Shopify e-commerce development solutions. But you have to ensure that you are choosing the right expert for your business. At least, they may have a fair amount of experience in this field.

Moreover, if you are thinking that you are not expecting much from your Shopify store or think your needs are not much to have a full-time expert, you may look forward to their experts according to hourly rates. This will help you maintain your low cost; however, you will lack the full-time dedicated expires due to low pay.

The more you expect, the more you have to pay the best conclusion to your thought of breaking down the expected cost. If you are looking for the best, enhancing an attractive Shopify store with your favorite features, you can expect $1500 to $10,000 from your Shopify expert developers. What you have to make sure of is that you have to keep your eyes on what you are getting after paying your amount. Let me simplify it for you that you cannot lend your store in the expert’s hand; however, your views are also important, just like their experience.

How to find the best Experts to Hire?

This can be a little tricky sometimes to find the best fit according to our business and your budget. Most of the time, what we are getting does not suit our budget, or sometimes their expertise level does not match the task we want. However, still, there is a solution to it. Try the steps given below; you will find the best expert for your store.

 

1. Ask the community:

This is an old and proven way to find out experts or the person having relative experience. If you are looking to hiring a Shopify expert for all your e-commerce development solutions, you can ask around the Shopify store owners’ community. Not every but many of those owners would have been through the process and may have someone trusted to them.

However, the search here didn’t end. The expert may be highly recommended, but your task is to keep an eye on them and their work. You can go through their social media or search online about them. I am sure you will find relative information to make up your mind. Or you can peek into the previous project they have been into.

2. Going through an expert directory:

If you are still unable to find anyone to be a perfect match for your needs, even in your recommendations, don’t worry. Here is another way to it. You can go through the Shopify expert directories. This directory allows you to search for any name, any keyword, and the location. This method can work best for the people looking for locals to help them as locals have much more understanding and have more accessible ways to face to face meetings. Moreover, this directory search allows you to filter experts regarding prices and expertise to find your job’s perfect fit.

 

3. Evaluate Shopify experts:

Once finding the best match for your store, whether from the community or the directories, you need to know more about them.

If you have found someone living in your area, that could be great to talk over a coffee. If not possible, you can facetime through skype. However, face time meetings help you to know each other personalities and work behavior.

Other than that, you can have an interview with your selected expert, not like a formal interview but, asking about past work experience and vice versa. This can be beneficial to both as the expert would also come to know about your nature. Moreover, you can ensure them to be deadline punctual. However, they would be if they are not money-hungry.

 

Communication is the key 

Once you have to find the perfect match through the upper mentioned ways, you can now just handing over the project details to your expert. However, you can still mention your views on the task you want, and probably they would work accordingly. After the outlining and handing over the project to him, the primary and significant issue would be communication. It is necessary to communicate on the topic queries you are finding or the things you are not liking. Being available to communicate is the main thing you have to work on; you have to be available for your expert to answer any question to him.

Through the project, you can communicate, give feedback, ask for the task for the stages of task completion, etc. The same goes for another side. It would probably be easier to ask each other for your favorite time of availability or be available 24/7. After all, experts are also humans like you and me, not mind readers.

 

Final thoughts

Shopify is easy to build an e-commerce platform allowing many beginners to set up and flourish their store. However, there are still areas of technicalities that need experts’ help. This expert help can be obtained by hiring Shopify store experts according to the type of store and task.

We have mentioned the complete guide about who Shopify experts are and how they can add value to your business. Moreover, you can share your experience if you find these tips valuable and helpful.