Hello!
Once you create a store, you will need to think of a few ways to get your product in front of your potential customer.
Here are some of the things you can do - along with links to free / affordable services that can help you do it
1. Before you get started with marketing, check if your store can actually make a sale:
- is the store published and accessible without a password?
- is there at least 1 product available for sale?
- does the checkout work?
Helpful app: ShopCheck
2. If you haven’t yet, try to define target audience - the people who are most likely to become your customers. Once you focus on a specific group, it’s easier to look for the ways to promote your product to them.
Consider the following characteristics:
- Demographics (my initial offer would be to focus on women aged 25-34 and 35-44, but you can choose other groups based on what you’re offering)
- Location (do you ship locally or internationally?)
- Language (do your potential customers speak English? Spanish? Perhaps, French?)
- Interests & hobbies (the most obvious one here is “cooking”, but try to look deeper and see what else your target audience likes)
Helpful app: Shopify Audiences
3. Once the preparatory work is done, let’s focus on ways to help your store get discovered - at the current level of competition it’s not easy, but not impossible either.
One way to do this is with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) - improvement to keywords and site structure that helps your business rank higher in search results.
Note that SEO is an ongoing process. Here’s what you can start with:
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. How would they be looking for something you offer? What words do they use? Is it “buy kitchen utensils” or “plastic spatula grey”?
Helpful app: SPO SEO Product Optimizer
- Include the keywords on your store pages
Make sure that your store’s title and description – two pieces of text that show up on search – clearly describe what you offer and feature the most prominent keywords you discovered. Include relevant keywords to product descriptions.
Helpful app: SearchPie: SEO Booster & Speed
- Add alternative text to your product images
Alternative text is what shows up in the place of the image if the latter fails to load. It also helps people discover your product images as they are searching for a specific thing online. Be sure to add an accurate description of each image and include relevant keywords in it - e.g. “egg yolk separator stainless steel food grade dishwasher safe”.
Helpful app: Smart SEO
- Make sure your store is properly structured
If you have product collections, make sure that they are easy to navigate and are named according to their content. Your store has a better chance of being discovered if your cutting board collection is named “Cutting boards”, not “Collection 1”
Helpful app: Sitemapper Sitemap Generator
- Make sure that your pages load fast
Click around your store on desktop and mobile devices. See how quickly the pages load. If it takes a while, you may want to add more “lightweight” product images, review the list of connected plugins or remove pop-up windows.
Helpful app: Page Speed Optimizer
4. Run paid ads
Prospecting (a.k.a. Traffic) ads can help you reach out to people who are interested in buying what you have. Based on your target audience and budget, you can run ads manually on at least one of advertising platforms (my personal suggestion would be Facebook / Instagram ads)
Helpful app: Adwisely | Social & Google ads
You can find more tips - along with detailed explanations and more app suggestions - in “How do I get more visitors to my Shopify store? | eCommerce Marketing 101” guide.
Hope this is helpful 💚
