How can I improve my new firefighter-themed store and blog?

[TedsSites]

Hello friends, my name is Ted and I have recently opened my new store called First Due Designs. It is a shop and a blog for firefighters. I am happy with how it is coming along, but I have no doubt that there are things that I can improve. First and foremost, I would like to add reviews/social proof, but I don't have any to share yet. I will once I start getting some traffic/sales. 

I was hoping that I could get some constructive feedback about the new site. 

https://firstduedesigns.com/

Thank you!

[biznazz101]

Hello, congrats on starting your store!

After reviewing your website here are a few tips:
-I would move the header menu links so they are center below the brand logo, I would also make them slightly larger or bold so they are more visible to users

-I would also recommend changing the color or size of your main CTA buttons on the banner homepage, this is your best chance of getting a customer to take action so it is important these elements are attention grabbing

Otherwise looks like you have a great start. Keep up the good work!
@biznazz101 

[TedsSites]

@biznazz101 Thank you for taking the time to look at my site, and for the feedback. I have tried other Shopify stores in the past, and have been very discouraged with the results. Your input is very encouraging. I will make those adjustments. Thank you!

[Mac]

Hi, @TedsSites!

Thanks for reaching out in our Community forums and for sharing your store link, I would be happy to provide you with some feedback on your shop!

I really enjoyed looking through your shop and products, it looks like you have a lot of great options for your customers. Your product photos are great and truly capture the customers attention. You mentioned that you are still working on gathering reviews, so feel free to check out this resource on How to Encourage Customer Reviews to learn more about the methods on obtaining honest reviews and the benefits they have on your business. 

You will want to ensure that the navigational flow is clear on your homepage, so visitors can quickly choose the best path for themselves. This involves very specifically selecting your home navigation which is also known as the menu on your store. You can go many different directions with this, so feel free to explore. My suggestion would be to include more sections directly, instead of having them all as dropdowns. This will ensure that customers can find your products easily. An example of this would be: Home, Shop by Product, Shop by Brand, Contact Us, More. In the "More" section, you can include the rest of your pages. 

You may also want to add a rotating slideshow or content on your homepage to showcase your promotions, featured products, and blogs. Another suggestion is to add Shopify Inbox to your shop. This app allows you to interact with potential customers and provide tailored recommendations, should they have any questions. Take a look at our Shopify Inbox Guide on how to set this up. 

Hope this helps!

[TedsSites]

@Mac thank you so much for taking the time to look at my store and to leave some feedback for me. I will definitely be incorporating your suggestions. .

[Mac]

Hi again, @TedsSites!

I'm happy to hear that.

I wanted to share a few additional resources that could help you out. Since the homepage is typically the first page a customer views, Feel free to check out our Homepage Design 101 Blog for some tips to keep in mind as you are working on your homepage. 

Also, since you're still in the process of building your shop, you can view The General Checklist. It's a great tool that will ensure that you have your Shopify store all set up and ready for customers to make purchases on. In other words, having a finished product, that includes having your media, shipping and check out all in working order.

All the best!

[nuerrify]

Hey Ted, cool store. I see that you have a bunch of blogs and content around fire fighting. I wanted to share some simple keyword research for your site with you. This is what people actually search on Google and maybe you can tailor your content around that:

Direct:

1) Fire Fighter Gifts (9,900 searches per month): this is a highly seasonal search peaking in Nov and Dec with about 30,000 searches, but is still pretty constant in lower months with around 5K searches or so. You should make your whole Home Page tailored to target this specific keyword. Also you should have a monthly: Best fire fighter gifts Nov 2023 edition. In this you can plug your own products and a couple other products. This is a pretty easy keyword to win, the competition is pretty easy. Also it's got a cheap Google ads cost: between $0.35 - $3ish. So testing out Google ads while you build your SEO might make sense.

Indirect:

2) Generally, targeting things that fire fighters or wanna-be fire fighters search for. In this there are some good content ideas: fire fighter costume (3,600 searches), fire fighter hat (2,400 searches), fire fighter boots (1,300 searches), fire fighter flag (720), fire fighter pants (480), fire fighter tools (480), fire fighter gloves (320 - super easy to rank on this). The content should be around ranking good options for fire fighters and letting them know what to think about. This way when they get on your site, they might be interested in buying your products as well. 

3) Essentials of fire fighting 7th edition (720 searches per month): I would review this book and provide more details about this book in a content piece. It is very easy to rank and if you do any sort of affiliate marketing- you could make a few bucks as well.

There's over 1 million fire fighters in USA, so there are a bunch of good options for you. 

[Gojiberry-Amee]

Hi TedSites, 

This is Amee from Gojiberry - Shopify Survey & Feedback App. 

I took a look at your store and like the wonderful message and information you are sharing. I have a few suggestions that will help improve your store & increase conversion rate: 

1. Testimonials. Showcasing a few testimonials on your home page -- whether from online customers or family/friends, helps promote more consumer trust and confidence. 
2. Reconsider categorization. When I click on each category, the products don't seem too different. This would be quite confusing for the consumers. Your other categorisation makes sense though! 
 
3. Call to action button. Add an add-to-cart button or any call-to-action button underneath each product on your products page. 
4.  Prioritising on homepage. Prioritize your featured products higher rather than categorization. 

5. Ask your customers! (Most effective for increasing conversion) Ask where your converting customers are coming from. You can easily do so with a post-purchase survey app, and reward your customers with coupons/points to keep them coming back again. Once you find out your strongest marketing channel, focus more effort and money on that. 

Hope this helps! 

Amee | Gojiberry Team 

[PageFly-Garcia]

Hi @TedsSites ,

I’m Garcia, a CRO expert from PageFly - Advanced Page Builder app.

Congratulations on your new store! I must say your store looks fantastic and you did a great job dedicating a store to men and women in service. There’s still some room for improvement so I’ll drop some suggestions here to potentially bring your store to newer heights:

1. General

• A good favicon (appearing first on a browser tab) should be clear, visible and should reflect the brand. Your brand’s name is overlapping your brand’s logo, making it look scuffed. I suggest you put in the logo only for better visibility.

• Your store is using the theme’s default font. If you like the font, you can leave as is, but I suggest you have a unique font for your store. Ideally something bold, and robust to reflect the nature of firefighters, like your logo’s font or this PF Din Text font.

2. For the Homepage

• Optimize hero banner: Hero banner takes up 70% of what your customers see in the first 5 seconds. Make sure you include everything in the first frame; for example, aligning this chunk of info to the center-right would help. 

• Center alignment for headings: As your next section is already center-aligned and for better presentation, every heading onwards should be center-aligned as well.

• Improve clickable buttons: In the hero banner, you should have your “Shop now” CTA button different by inverting the colors (red box with white, bolded text). Also, some of your ATC buttons are losing their bottom border. It might have something to do with that “View all” button right below them.

• Let your video autoplay: Making your video play automatically as your customers scroll will help them not have to click on it to know what it is about, instantly allowing them to know what you’re offering them.
• Add a newsletters section: I’m seeing that you included a newsletter field in the footer, where people can potentially ignore. Having it as a standalone section would help make more of an impact to them. You can refer to one of our example Newsletters section here. 

3. For the Collection page

• Avoid duplicate items and excess items: Like these “Featured Products” boxes, which also share the same image as the “Coffee Mugs” above. I suggest you only leave “Coffee Mugs” as we’re highlighting collections.

Also, they should be able to get back to the homepage by clicking on the logo so this red navigation box might be unnecessary.

• Add a secondary image on hover: Since it’s a collection which includes multiple products, having a secondary image when your customers hover over the image should give them a full picture of what that collection is about.

4. For the Product page

• Include multiple secondary images: For each product, provide at least 4 secondary images so that your customers get a full view. For instance, your hoodie should have a front view, a back view, a close-up view and a picture of a human model who tries it on.
• Display swatches as color instead of text: Seeing color swatches visually will help your customers know what exact color they’re getting. Texts can be vague and not as descriptive.

Display your product’s long information in accordion: Lengthy description makes your customers scroll. Instead, show them in the form of an accordion (collapsible content boxes) to make it neat.

Here’s an example product page template for you to get a clue: 

5. Make full use of holiday seasons

Holidays are the best times to promote sale-offs and discount offers, as customers’ demands are at their highest. Make full use of upcoming holidays like Christmas by:

• Making Christmas-themed products, banners to liven up your store’s holiday spirit.
• Adding a Christmas-themed sales banner that includes your current active discounts.
• Creating a holiday discount code, much like your FIRSTDUE10, like FIRSTDUEXMAS, for example.
• Adding a countdown timer to have your customers feel the urge to make a purchase on the spot.

Here’s a great example template for the holiday:

Hopefully, my suggestions have been of great help to you and your store-building journey. Do feel free to reach out to me if you need any further assistance.

Wishing you the best of luck!

Cheers,

Garcia | PageFly Team

[MooseDesk]

Hi @TedsSites ,

Thanks for reaching out to the community. This is MooseDesk - All-in-one Shopify Ticketing System App

Congrats on your new store! Your store looks stunning. I can tell you have put a lot of effort into building this. However, I have some comments to make the good get even better. Here are some of my recommendations for better customer experience, please kindly check.

1. Hero banner

An eye-catching hero banner plays two crucial roles in a every online store: 

• Creating excitement, great first impressions towards your store and encourage visitors to continue scrolling
• Delivering a clear message on what your business is about

In this case, I can see that you have used a high-resolution image with context about firefighters (which is great) but the message is not quite clear and focusing on one thing - selling online resource for firefighters.

Here is an example of a hero banner with concise message on what the are selling. Thus my advice is here is to revise your message to clearly communicate the purpose of your business to the visitors.

2. Promotions

People's attention is often drawn to promotions, discounts and they are more likely to make the purchasing decision when good deals are presented. The promotions can be in form of X% off or bundle deals. You can include them in banners across your page or your featured products. 

Examples:

3. Guarantees

People tend to trust businesses that are transparent and willing to share their brand policies. Here are some guarantees that you can show to your customers (depending on how your business operates).

4. FAQ

Customers tend to have a lot of questions, most of them can be answered by a simple FAQ (frequently asked questions) section. A well-written set of FAQ can build trust, confidence and make your customers feel more secured to make the purchasing decision. For more tips to create FAQ sections, you can refer to this useful blog from Shopify.

Example:

5.  Customer Support

Last but not least, when Customers are not able to find answers from the FAQ section. they will definitely look for a way to contact your support team. You can create a "Contact us" section or integrate a help widget on your site.

If you are looking for an app to do that, you can give MooseDesk a try. MooseDesk is currently FREE for all early birds with 24/7 dedicated support, which would help you answers all the questions and explain why MooseDesk is suitable for your business. 

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So those are my recommendations for your store. Hope it brings you some new insights.

If this is helpful for you, please let me know by giving me a 'LIKE'. If your question is answered please mark this as 'SOLUTION’. It would make my day!!

Once again, thank you!