How to Build a Successful Shopify E-Commerce Store
In April 2022, online retail sales made up more than a quarter of all retail sales in the UK.
This means that if you’re running a business, it’s crucial to make sure that your products are available to buy online - especially if you don’t have a brick and mortar shop to draw in shoppers on the high street.
Websites such as Shopify are becoming increasingly popular in the world of online business, as they provide business owners with all of the tools that they need to build their very own e-commerce store in one place.
However, just because you’ve set up your own e-commerce store doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll bring in tons of sales straight away. Because there are so many different competing retailers online, it’s essential to make sure that your brand and your products stand out to potential buyers.
So - how do you do this?
Web Design
How your Shopify website looks and functions is a huge part of attracting potential customers and making sales.
Before you open your e-commerce store, make sure that you spend some time carefully researching your target audience in advance, and plan your website’s design around their wants and needs. Consider who your ideal customer is, and design the website in a way that will attract them.
As well as the overall look of your website, it’s important that your Shopify website is designed in a way which encourages every visit to convert to a sale.
You can do this by ensuring that your checkout system is straightforward and easy to follow, to make sure that any potential customers don’t exit the page at the last hurdle because of something with a simple fix. Similarly, providing easy options for payment, such as Apple Pay, can also help to convert sales.
It’s also important to make sure that your overall website design is accessible, and adheres to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines for ultimate accessibility. We’ve covered designing your website for accessibility in more depth in a previous blog, which you can find here. (Accessibility Blog LINK)
If you’re unsure where to start when it comes to designing your Shopify e-commerce site, we’d recommend speaking to a web designer. Web designers are experienced in this area, and they can give you a fresh, outside perspective on what you need to do to achieve your business goals using Shopify.
Shopify
SEO Utilising best SEO practices on your Shopify e-commerce site is another way that you can help customers to find and purchase from your business.
For strong SEO, it’s important to make sure that all meta titles and tags are filled out with well-researched keywords. These need to be relevant to what your audience is searching for. One way to research keywords is by using tools like Semrush, which can provide lists of popular keywords in your business’ niche.
It’s also a good idea to rename your images. If you give an image a specific name, this makes sure that search engines can read it - and that they can then add your website, featuring the image, to relevant search results.
For example, if you had an image on your website with the title ‘naturalbeautyproductslondon’, you could use hyphens to separate the words. This would then read ‘natural-beauty-products-london’, and would help search engines to categorise the image and suggest it to users searching for this topic.
Another way to achieve a good SEO ranking is to keep all of your content up to date - for example, by posting a weekly or monthly blog, or by updating products on a regular basis. This helps to keep your website fresh and exciting, as well as utilising new, trending key words.
Finally, you could choose to utilise paid adverts for your Shopify e-commerce site to draw in more visitors. Paid ads on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram are relatively inexpensive, depending on your audience size and intended reach, and can be useful for targeting new potential customers.
Apps
There are some apps available which can help with conversion and customer retention on your Shopify e-commerce site.
Subscription apps like Recharge enable you to set up subscription offers, meaning that you can provide regular deals to subscribers. This can help to both boost your revenue and maintain customer loyalty.
Similarly, you could also use upsell apps, such as Bundles, to bundle products together for a set price - such as ‘buy one get one free’ offers.
While these apps can be useful, it’s important to bear in mind that apps can sometimes clash with each other and have a negative impact on your website. As well as this, most apps charge a monthly fee - so make sure that any apps that you use are working to convert, and are part of your overall strategy.
If you want to add something to your site without paying a monthly subscription fee, however, you could hire a Shopify developer to help you.
Make the most of any customer feedback that you receive, and make sure you’re displaying customer testimonials where appropriate - such as on your homepage, or on a dedicated testimonials page. Make sure that you feature testimonials on relevant products, too, as this is really helpful for converting sales!
Email Marketing Strategy
Lastly, it’s essential to have an email marketing strategy in place to promote your Shopify e-commerce site to customers who’ve purchased from you before.
Shopify provides users with its own, built-in email service which you can use, or you could try one of the many other services out there, such as MailChimp, which can be integrated with Shopify.
You can use an email marketing strategy to contact customers about their orders, encourage previous customers to purchase again and offer discounts or deals for your e-commerce site.
While this may sound complicated, lots of email services offer ways for you to set up these processes automatically - helping you to reach your customers with minimal effort!
To find out more about designing your own e-commerce site for success, get in touch with our experienced team of web designers today!