Before You Go Live On Shopify
Hey, thanks for dropping by!
Currently, I’m working on building a Shopify store from the ground up. Once finished, I’m experimenting with different types of marketing tools, such as Facebook Ads and Snapchat Ads. Additionally, follow along as I’ll be dropping tutorials and updates as well as other content all month, as part of a challenge where I’m blogging every day this month.
Anytime you try to start a new venture, there are a great number of things to consider. For something as simple as a lemonade stand, one must think of supply, demand, materials, the stand, and the location, for starters. Without a grasp on all that is important, you stand the chance to leave out something crucial.
For building a Shopify store, the areas to consider grow exponentially. This guide isn't meant to cover all of them, but what it does cover are a few no brainers that provide a good starting point.
Invest in a custom domain
Think of a domain as the address to find your site. Shopify provides a basic domain for you and it looks like this: your-store-name.myshopify.com The section “your-store-name) is replaced by whatever you choose to name your store.
So it already lends a degree of customization, but the “myshopify.com” is a cumbersome addition. I want to provide my customers with a store name that is simple and easy to remember. It may not seem like a big deal, but it is.
For typically around 14 dollars, you can choose a custom domain name that drops the “myshopify” extension and instead uses a traditional your-store-name.com It is a worthwhile investment and it gives your store a far more professional air.
Quality over Quantity
Whatever your field of commerce, you may be tempted to populate your store with as many products and pages as you can, as fast as you can. I would discourage that.
This is why it is important to devote some time to store building before you go public, if possible. Use that time to focus on the quality of every little area instead of throwing every listing you have up immediately.
There are so many things that can be perfected. Things like meta descriptions and alt text may seem nuanced, but they are very important for your organic traffic. Improve the copy on one page before you try adding more pages. People will remember what they didn't like a lot easier than what they did.
I’m selling designs on apparel. I have a bunch of ideas for new designs, but I still need to reign in the horses and fine-tune my current catalog before I try to add more.
Start slowly, perfecting every little bit, and then build. Don’t leave any room for errors, bad grammar, dead links, or any other unpleasing customer experience.
Build a foundation for your brand
As you hopefully experience success with your venture, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to grow.
So start with the basics.
Make sure you understand your message and your audience. Take care to convey that properly, and just the way you want to. If you are passionate about what you do and you can show others why, people will appreciate that and you’ll find like minds.
Cover your digital presence bases. Create a logo and slap it on everything you can (within reason, of course). Create your social pages, emails, and wherever else you plan on pushing your brand. This is another reason why you want to give yourself time before opening your Shopify storefront. These things take time.
When building a brick-and-mortar store building, nobody is going to try to open the store before the plumbing is done, or the electrical, or the windows installed, or the products stocked. That would just be a sure way to lose business, for people would associate that brand with being ill-prepared, overzealous, and lazy.
Slow and steady wins the race.
I’m learning a lot as I go through the process of building a Shopify store and marketing for it. As I make mistakes and learn from them, I hope you can succeed the first time where I failed.
