Previously, you learned the essentials for creating a functional Shopify store.
In this reading, you will learn about more ways to improve your customers’ shopping experience on your mock Shopify store. These include: adding your brand’s voice to your site, choosing the right theme, and optimizing essential information.
Table of Contents
Add your brand voice
Expressing your brand’s voice on your store’s website is a great way to attract customers and get them interested in your brand. As a reminder, brand voice is the distinct personality a brand takes on in a company’s communications. This includes the messaging and imagery on your store’s website. Two ways to display brand voice on your site are creating “about us” pages and blog sections.
“About us” pages offer a great way for customers to learn about your business and who you are as a brand. Use this section to tell customers about your brand’s journey and mission.
Blog sections are a thoughtful and deliberate strategy to connect with customers. Adding a blog section to your store also helps improve its SEO by adding more searchable keywords. The blog posts can include information about your brand’s products, announcements, and compelling narratives about your company or a related topic.
You can add these sections to your site by using the sales channel menu on your admin dashboard.
While honing your brand voice with “about us” pages or blog posts, decide how you want your audience to perceive your brand. Then practice developing your tone of voice and implement it into all communications. Tone of voice is how the character of your business is perceived in written and spoken communication. It’s not about what you say, but rather the way you say it.
Choose the right theme
Earlier, you learned that a theme is a pre-built website template that creates the design and layout of your store. Themes form the organization, features, and style details—like fonts and colors—of your online store. Shopify applies a default theme to your store when it is created.
Choosing the right theme with specific layouts, colors, and fonts helps you tailor your brand’s identity so that your store is recognizable and distinctive. Choosing the right theme can also complement your product photos, making customers interested in what you are selling.
Select the Themes tab on your Shopify profile to view your live theme, explore the theme library for free and paid themes, or upload a theme you purchased elsewhere.
Shopify user dashboard on the themes page.
If you cannot find the right theme template for your store, you have the option to build your own theme or adjust an existing theme—but use caution. Themes are created using code, which takes time and skill to perfect without errors. To avoid making coding mistakes, some merchants hire web developers. You are not expected to purchase a theme or hire a web developer for your mock Shopify store.
Optimize essential information
Customers expect to be able to find important shopping information when they visit an online store. When important information is missing or inaccurate, it can cause the customer to lose trust in your brand—and even leave your site—costing you a possible conversion.
When optimizing your store, pay close attention to your contact information, product details, and return policy.
You should also include terms of service, which are legal agreements between a business and customers, and a privacy policy, which is a legal document that discloses some or all the ways a business gathers, uses, discloses, and manages a customer’s data.
Google requires that all e-commerce businesses include this information for customer review. Shopify offers templates for these items. Review the provided templates to ensure that they align with your business.
Contact information
A contact page is a common web page on a website for visitors to contact the organization or individual providing the website. Most templates include a contact page that has the option to add your business’s name, customer support email address, and phone number, if available.
Shopify’s “Contact Us” page
You can also add a “contact us” feature on your store’s contact page to let customers get in touch with you. All Shopify themes have a built-in contact form that you can add to the pages you create so that customers can contact you directly with a message. This helps you build trust with your customers, as they feel that your brand is more accessible.
Product details
You learned earlier that you can update your product details on your Google Merchant Center account. When you link your Shopify and Google accounts, the products are added to your site. The details that you provide for a product affect the way that the product is displayed to customers, make it easier for you to organize your products, and help customers find the product. Be sure to check that your product details are accurate and to your liking. If necessary, edit your product details using the admin menu.
Return policy
A return policy is a document that describes, in detail, your business’s process and requirements for accepting returns. Having these policies stated helps your customers make informed buying decisions. You can edit your return policy under the policies tab of your admin dashboard.
Policies tab in the Shopify admin dashboard.
Shopifiy has return policy templates for you to work from. If you choose to use a template, be sure to edit specific details to match your business model.
Your return policy should answer two basic questions:
- How can customers make a return? Most businesses offer customers the option to exchange their purchases for another product of equal value or return their purchase for a full cash refund.
- How long do customers have before they can make a return? Typically, most websites offer a 30 to 60-day return window.
Once complete, these policies will be easily accessible at the bottom of your store’s website, in accordance with Shopify guidelines.
Key takeaways
Creating a functional store website is just the beginning of your ecommerce store journey. To build a successful store, you must fine tune aspects like your brand voice, website themes, and key policy information.