5 Best Practices For Shopify Website Design

 

Shopify is the world’s foremost eCommerce platform, and the competition isn’t even close. In the first six months of 2021 alone, Shopify vendors processed nearly $80 billion in gross sales. Not all Shopify merchants, however, are on equal footing. 

The most successful Shopify websites bring in the lion’s share of sales, which include global brands such as Fashion Nova, Gymshark, and Decathlon. To compete with the top dogs in the eCommerce space, small Shopify websites need to be optimized such that they stand out and provide a streamlined user experience.

An excellent Shopify website design can take your small eCommerce store to new heights. For this article, we consulted with our team of Shopify developers to put together a list of best design practices for Shopify websites. 

 

1.Create Bespoke Navigation Solutions

At a high-level, all Shopify best practices revolve around UI/UX improvement. If your prospective customer isn’t given a simple and intuitive pathway from product discovery to checkout, then they are liable to bounce and cost you a sale. 

One surefire way to lose a customer is to present them with an overwhelming number of options. To prevent them from feeling overwhelmed and abandoning their shopping cart, consider creating a custom-made, responsive website navigation system. 

For instance, if a customer is looking for desks for a home office, a well-designed Shopify site should display only desks relevant to their interests. Displaying complimentary items such as lamps and chairs may impede rather than enhance the purchase experience. 

A well-optimized custom Shopify navigation. (Source: Shopify App Store).

In short, there should be plenty of white space utilized on the Shopify navigation page. Otherwise, you can muddy the waters with too many options all at once. 

 

2. Search Engine Optimization

Shopify sites should be well-optimized for search engines such as Google and Bing. Otherwise, you’re going to bleed organic traffic and, by extension, sales. The good news is that you can improve UX and SEO at the same time, and this applies to Shopify sites as much as any other.

Beyond basic UI/UX tips, you’re going to want to practice in-depth Shopify SEO. There are a variety of techniques and best practices you can apply to improve your website’s rankings in the eyes of Google PageRank, including:

• Employ data-driven keywords in titles, headings, and body text using keyword research tools such as Ahrefs, Moz, or Semrush
• Optimize metadata such as title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, and URL slugs
• Create a blog section of your Shopify website and update it at least once monthly
• Improve website loading speed to less than 2 seconds
• Write thorough, error-free, and accurate product descriptions and tags
• Ensure all on-page elements render properly on mobile devices
  

3. Offer Product Collections

It’s somewhat rare that we buy items in isolation. If we buy a new shirt, we often want to check out jeans or a jacket to match the outfit. The same principle of product matching applies to most categories of goods, including electronics, cosmetics, and a host of other items. 

This is why offering AI-generated product collections can help boost your sales and increase the visibility of less popular products in your store. Luckily, Shopify’s API allows you to include collections with the click of a button and, therefore, create a more accessible and simple UX/UI. 

A live Shopify collections example. (Source: Pangaia).

The best Shopify websites are built with the customer experience top of mind. There are countless Shopify website examples where the UX/UI doesn’t create minimal friction between the landing page and checkout, but there are also many instances of Shopify done right, such as in the case of retailer Pangaia, shown above.

 

4. Minimize JavaScript

The most popular Shopify themes, such as District and Roxxe, already use minimal JavaScript in their code. This has the benefit of allowing your store to quickly load in the user’s browser, and to minimize the risk of having annoying and unnecessary pop-ups or animations occur on-page. 

If you’re coding a Shopify website from scratch, it’s crucial that you keep JavaScript and other dynamic scripting languages to a minimum. Otherwise, you might disrupt a speedy UI/UX and cause your website’s SEO and overall performance to suffer. 

 

5. Showcase Your Products

Even the best Shopify stores won’t get you far unless you have proper product marketing practices in place. Merely creating a Shopify store is insufficient for bringing in sales. Simply put, you need a product marketing funnel to generate interest in your products and create a buzz. 

There are many ways that you can properly showcase your Shopify products using product marketing methods. The most popular forms of Shopify product marketing include the following:

• Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
• Social media advertising
• Influencer marketing
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Affiliate referral program
• Email marketing 

If you need a brief crash course, here’s a guide to product marketing for eCommerce and retail success. When properly formulated, a Shopify marketing strategy can bring significant attention to your product collection and, with time, build organic traffic to your domain.

 

Set Up Shop(ify), the Right Way

The five ground rules listed above only scratch the surface of what can be considered Shopify’s best practices. There are countless ways in which Shopify stores can be optimized and, in turn, there are as many ways that Shopify merchants can detract from the UX/UI and unknowingly penalize their site.

In short, there’s a right way and a wrong way to build a Shopify store. If you don’t know how to build on the world’s most popular eCommerce platform, all of your efforts may go to waste. Fortunately, Shopify web developers understand this and have the expertise to avoid the pitfalls that often emerge when trying to build your first eCommerce store on Shopify. 

At IronMonk, our team of Shopify experts can help you reach your eCommerce goals. With years of experience in eCommerce and Shopify, we can deliver a fully optimized Shopify store that’s guaranteed to perform. Consult our conversion rate optimization team today to find out whether our eCommerce services are right for you.