How to Build Your Own Website With Shopify Website Builder & Best Practices
Shopify is well-known for its simple website builder and large variety of integrations. Shopify mainly targets ecommerce businesses, so there’s a lot of builtin support for things such as sales channels, inventory tracking, and shipping. With the help of applications like Upscribe, you can even set up a subscription service.
All this and more make Shopify a popular website builder for ecommerce stores.
To find out more about Shopify website builder, read on.
What is Shopify?
Shopify is one of the best website builders for small businesses, with a no-code editor and flexible pricing plans.
If you use Shopify, you get access to their free design themes and the Shopify App Store which features over 8,000+ applications built to create and support a growing ecommerce business.. In addition to third party applications, Shopify also provides you with various in-built tools to help you manage your ecommerce business. These features include:
- POS (point of sale) Support
- Access to a variety of Sales Channels (including online marketplaces and social media platforms like Instagram)
- A unified Checkout System
- Centralized Inventory Tracking
- Shopify Shipping
Why use Shopify Website Builder?
Easy to use
Shopify website builder comes with a drag-and-drop editor, which allows you to build a profitable ecommerce business regardless of your coding expertise. They have 100+ themes you can use as a starting point — just choose a template that suits your industry.
Incredible Marketing and SEO Tools
When using Shopify website builder, you get access to various marketing and SEO features, which can help grow your business. Shopify marketing offers automation, built-in SEO tools, and apps that allow you to integrate with other marketing channels (e.g., Facebook and Google).
Low Startup Costs
Shopify website builder has pricing options for any kind of budget, ranging from $29/month to $299/month, depending on your professional needs. Their 14-day free trial doesn’t require your credit card information, so it’s completely risk-free.
Shopify integrations, such as Upscribe, also allow you to create some predictable revenue via a subscription service. This way, you can start making a steady stream of income and keep your business afloat.
How to Build a Website With Shopify
1. Create Your Shopify Account
Before you can get started with your website building, you must first create a Shopify account. Navigate to shopify.com and select the ‘start free trial’ button in the top right corner.
You’ll then be asked a series of questions about why you’re signing up and your business needs. Alternatively, you can click ‘skip all’ to avoid answering these questions.
Afterward, you’ll be taken to the signup page. You can create a Shopify ID using your Facebook, Google, or Apple accounts. Or, if you don’t wish to use existing accounts, make a new one by clicking ‘continue with email’.
Input your email and password. When you’re done, click ‘Create Shopify ID’ to complete the process.
After creating your account, navigate to the ‘home’ tab and look at your setup guide. There should be a list of activities for you to do, which will help you set up your online store. First on the list should be naming your store. Click on ‘store settings’ and select ‘name store’.
Or, you can go to settings>store details to input your store name, contact information, store currency, and so on.
2. Add Your Products
Next, it’s time to start adding products to your online store. Select the ‘add product’ option.
Alternatively, you could navigate to the ‘products’ tab and click ‘add your products’.
For each product, you need to add details such as their name, description, images, and pricing. There’s also a section for inputting the product’s quantity, shipping weight, and SEO data.
Once you’re finished with all these details, organize your catalog by choosing a category for the product and tag it with relevant keywords.
Click the ‘save’ option in the upper right to add the product to your online store officially.
Repeat this process for all your other products. Then, return to the ‘products’ tab to view your catalog.
If you want to duplicate a product, click on the product again, and you should see a ‘duplicate’ option available near the top.
3. Choose a Theme for Your Website
Now that you’ve added all your products, it’s time to design the layout of your website. Shopify has a range of free themes available for you to use. Go to online store>themes and pick the layout you like best.
For more themes, scroll to the bottom and select ‘visit theme store’.
Or, you could just go to themes.shopify.com and click ‘explore themes’.
You can filter the Shopify themes by price, industry, catalog size, and features.
After choosing a layout, return to the ‘Themes’ tab and click ‘Customize’ to start editing the text, images, and other components.
4. Set up Your Website’s Title and Meta Description
When customizing each product’s SEO data, you need to aim for high search engine rankings. Consider which keywords potential customers would type into Google. For example, if you’re selling white t-shirts on your website, keywords could include white t-shirts or short sleeves. Add those keywords to your SEO data to make your product easier to find.
Go to online store>preferences to similarly optimize your website’s SEO data.
5. Launch Your Website
Finally, it’s time to launch your online store. If you’re on a free trial, your website will be password-locked by default. To bypass this, select a subscription plan.
While on the ‘online store’ tab, click ‘pick a plan’ to view all of Shopify’s subscriptions.
Select the plan that appeals to you the most.
Create and add Domain Name
Before launching your site, you should customize your domain (aka your URL). Make it something memorable so customers can easily access your store. Your domain should match your brand or store name.
Go to the settings and navigate to the ‘domains’ tab. Here, you can either buy a new domain or connect to an existing one.
When buying a new domain, type in your desired domain name to view the annual cost of purchasing the URL. Different extensions (e.g., .com, .org, .net, etc.) have different prices.
Or, you can create a Shopify domain for free (it ends with myshopify.com). Click ‘change to a new myshopify.com domain’, input your new URL, and select ‘add domain’ when you’re finished.
Enable Payments Within Shopify
Every online store needs an integrated payment system. Enable payments for your website in settings>payments.
Shopify’s default payment methods include credit cards and PayPal. Click ‘activate Shopify payments’, and fill in your business address and contact details on the form that pops up.
You should now have payments enabled. Just make sure your PayPal email matches your Shopify email. If it doesn’t, edit your PayPal details to reflect the correct information.
Make Your Shopify Store Public
Finally, it’s time to make your online store go live.
Once your store is public, consider integrating a subscription service into your business with the help of Upscribe. You can easily launch and scale subscriptions on your Shopify store and reduce customer churn with our powerful growth tools.
Upscribe also allows you to customize your Shopify checkout system to improve customer experience for those customers of yours that are subscribers.
Shopify Best Practices
1. Take Advantage of apps and Integrations
While Shopify is a great website builder, it still has its limitations. Luckily, Shopify’s app store is full of integrations and software you could use to elevate your online business. They all vary in price, and some of them are even free, so there’s no harm in checking them out.
2. Measure and Iterate
Pay attention to your analytics so you can measure the success of your business. Regularly monitor things like your visitor counts, conversions, and churn rate to see if there are any areas you need to improve upon. Every time you make a change, check your website analytics to determine how effective your new strategies are.
3. Optimize for Mobile Shoppers
Remember that many customers shop on mobile devices, so make sure your store is mobile-compatible. Test out your site with your own phone to see if there are any UI difficulties that need fixing.
4. Personalize the Customer Experience
In order to retain customers, you need to deliver a great customer experience. Your online store should be intuitive and easy to use to prevent churn. You can also tailor these experiences to each customer with personalized product recommendations. This way, each customer feels valued and seen.
5. Practice Restraint
Since your store should be easy to navigate, avoid putting too much clutter on your site. A visually messy interface can be off-putting to customers. Instead, keep every web page clean and organized. Whenever a customer clicks on your site, they should be able to tell the following things right away:
- The purpose of the page
- How to navigate the page
- The most important elements of the page
Conclusion
Shopify website builder is home to many in-built ecommerce tools, so they’re a popular choice among online businesses. Aside from their no-code editor, they also offer a variety of apps and integrations, such as Upscribe. Here at Upscribe, we allow you to scale your subscription business with out-of-the-box tools, including smart cancellation flows and reorders.
Schedule a demo today to get a closer look at our growth tools and how we help reduce churn.
