Shopify is one of the biggest platforms to build and manage e-commerce stores, used by over 1.75 million stores in 175 countries. While it has many features to make store management easy, neglecting some details during setup can be a problem.
To make your online store thrive we have put together a Shopify store checklist, the critical steps to set you up for long term success.
Why Shopify is the Top Choice for Businesses?
Shopify is a cloud based e-commerce solution that allows businesses worldwide to build and run online stores through a subscription model. It’s a go to platform for entrepreneurs and big and small businesses to setup and grow their digital presence. With Shopify you can create an online store and start selling in minutes. It’s loved by big brands and small businesses alike for its simplicity and scalability.
Shopify Store Setup Guide
1. Set up Your Shopify Store Domain
During the initial setup of your Shopify store you will get a free myshopify.com domain like “https://new-fashion-brand.myshopify.com”. But this domain may not look professional and affect your brand identity. As we will discuss later a custom domain is more memorable and builds trust.
You can buy a domain from various online providers including Google Domains. If you are short on time a Shopify development agency can help with the setup.
When you change your domain you might see an error that says it’s disconnected. This is normal as it can take up to 24 hours to propagate.
2. Set up Key Pages for Your Store
Every Shopify store should have basic pages that customers expect. These pages help build trust and credibility for your brand and overall user experience. They usually have information about your brand, products, policies and customer contact options.
Here are the basic pages your Shopify store should have:
- Homepage
- Contact Page
- About Page
- FAQs
- Shipping & Returns Policy
- Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy
- Collection Pages
- Product Pages
- Checkout Page
3. Set up Payment Methods and Taxes on Shopify
Shopify has many payment gateway options to suit your business needs. These include Shopify Payments, PayPal, Worldpay and many more, each catering to different customer preferences. Choosing the right payment gateway before launching your store is important as it will enable secure online transactions for your business and customers and protect debit and credit card payments.
4. Set up Shopify Shipping Rates
You need to set competitive and transparent shipping rates for customers before they checkout and get accurate delivery estimates. Your shipping rates should be based on the products you sell and the areas you serve. You can choose from calculated, flat rate and weight based shipping.
5. Improve Your Shopify Site’s Loading Speed
When you set up your Shopify store speed is key. Store speed affects user experience and can make or break your online business. 50 is good according to Google Lighthouse. You can also check your store speed with Page Speed Insights.
6. Optimize your Shopify store for mobile
Still in 2024 some businesses are neglecting their mobile site. Our advice? Don’t be one of them!
Why does this matter? As we wrote in our blog on how site speed affects the customer journey 79% of customers who are dissatisfied with a site’s speed will not return. That’s a lot of potential revenue lost.
One of the benefits of using Shopify is you can adjust settings to improve your site’s mobile experience. We recommend running several site speed tests with tools like Google Page Speed and checking for broken links. Eastside Co’s Easy Redirects app can help you find and fix those issues.
While site speed is important it’s just one of the factors to consider. Other factors such as image placement, call-to-action (CTA) button placement, minimising pop-ups and browser compatibility can also impact your Shopify site’s mobile performance. Now’s a good time to get feedback from a UI/UX designer on your mobile web design.
7. Grow your store with SEO
One of the most important things to focus on when you set up your Shopify store is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Shopify SEO is a marketing strategy that gets your e-commerce store visible in Google’s organic search results by optimising meta titles, product descriptions, image alt texts and more. This will help you beat your competitors, attract new customers and drive traffic to your site.
There’s a lot of information on how to optimise your SEO and we recommend getting to know the basics. Shopify has many tools to help you improve your store’s SEO and knowing how to use them is key to building a successful Shopify store.
Here are the SEO tasks to focus on when setting up your new Shopify store:
Sitemap
Creating a sitemap during your Shopify store setup is important for both user experience and SEO. A sitemap is a map of your store’s structure, showing how different pages are organised and connected. These help search engines like Google to crawl and index your site better so all your important pages are found and ranked.
Image Optimisation
To optimise your Shopify store’s SEO make sure to optimise all images:
- Use descriptive image file names with target keywords.
- Optmise image alt texts with short descriptions including target keywords.
- Use tools like Pixlr or Canva to reduce image file size without losing quality. JPEG and PNG are best for web use.
Keyword Research and Optimization
Do keyword research to find out what your target audience is searching for. Focus on long tail and short tail keywords related to your products and have high search volume. Also consider transactional and informational keywords. Put these keywords in your Shopify store content so search engines can index your pages.
Google Business Profile
Fill out your Google Business profile with all the necessary info, services offered, business address and contact details. Adding high quality images of your products can also build trust with potential customers. An updated Google Business profile will boost your Shopify store credibility.
Content Marketing
Create high quality optimized content for all your Shopify website pages. This includes product descriptions, features and benefits, usage instructions and shipping and return policies. Quality content will boost your Google rankings and conversion rates.
Building backlinks for your Shopify store and promoting them will make your site visible. By focusing on your SEO from the start you’re allowing search engines like Google to index your site.
8. Create High-Quality Product Photography and Media
Creating and finalizing different media types can take a lot of collaboration, planning and review. Having a library of high quality media assets before you launch your Shopify store will make your store look better and save you time in the long run.
Here are the visual assets you should include:
- Product photography
- Branded images
- Stock photos
- Logos in EPS, JPG and PNG
- Style guide
- Branded graphic elements
- Icons
- Video files
This is a lot of content but having diverse assets will be helpful during Shopify setup.
Also create versions of your branded images without your logo. This will give you more flexibility to use them across your Shopify store and other marketing channels. Simple design tools like Canva or apps like Video Background can help you create engaging content.
9. Enhance Customer Engagement
Your Shopify store should be designed with user experience in mind. This means a clean layout, intuitive menus and search functionality. Your store should be mobile responsive, fast and optimized for Google’s Core Web Vitals.
Tips to Speed Up Your Shopify Site
To get a good speed score:
- Optimize Image Sizes: Reduce image file sizes.
- Limit App Usage: Keep the number of installed apps to a minimum as each app slows down your site.
- Choose a Speed Optimized Theme: Select a Shopify theme that loads fast.
- Enable Caching: This will reduce loading time for returning visitors.
- Reduce Page Elements: Simplify your pages by removing elements to speed up.
Why Speed Matters
- User Experience: Faster site = higher overall satisfied.
- Conversion Rates: Quicker pages = more sales.
- Search Rankings: Faster site = more organic traffic.
- Mobile: Easier to navigate on mobile.
- Customer Loyalty: Happy customers come back.
- Brand Image: Faster site = conveys professionalism.
- Ad Effectiveness: Quicker pages = better ads.
10. Chatbot Solutions or Direct Messaging
As technology gets better, businesses have more opportunities to get in front of their target audience. 1.4 billion people use chatbots for simple questions or feedback collection.
By setting up a library of pre-written answers for your chatbot, you can give instant answers to customers and save time and operational costs. You can also integrate Shopify with Facebook Messenger if you prefer to chat with customers via social media. While communication is important, getting the customer experience right on your Shopify store is key to long term success.
Get Started
These ten key considerations will assist you in creating your Shopify store. Contact us if you’re prepared to embark on your Shopify adventure. Our Shopify Development Services are here to quickly design and develop your store, along with tailored marketing and business strategies to help your brand thrive.