Hi again! Sorry for my late reply, I wanted to be sure I had the time to answer all your questions here! Hope youâre doing well, and Iâm happy that the information I sent was helpful to you.
I took a look at your website updates and already Iâm loving what Iâm seeing. Your new banner looks beautiful also. The logo looks great with the background matching now. Fantastic job with your main menu and the drop down list!
When you remove the Collections block, you can replace it with blog posts or your Instagram feed. There is no wrong answer here, whatever you can think of but I do think one of those 2 options would work well.
If you were to write a few blog posts they donât need to be elaborate, you can talk about trends going into summer or winter since youâre heading into summer now and others (like me 
) are heading into winter. If you enjoy writing this would be a great feature to add to your website, it also helps with your ranking in Google when you add new original content to your website.
If you wanted to add the Instagram feed you could use an app like Instafeed / Instagram Feed that is great and has a free plan available. You can also search in the Shopify App Store for other apps to compare.
You mentioned the reviews slideshow you added has a gap at the bottom, I wouldnât be able to help you without seeing it or your admin, but you can reach out to our support team directly and they will be able to authenticate you and then take a look at your theme to see why this might be happening and how to fix it. I also wanted to mention that if youâre using a Shopify made theme you are eligible for up to 1 hour of free coding to your theme. Itâs best to wait until you have made all your theme changes, and then go through and take notes of anything else you would want to change but youâre not sure how to. Then contact support and let them know you would like to use your hour.
When it comes to your own photos, I was referring to people wearing the clothes but itâs not something that you have to have right now, and maybe once you start to bring in more customers you can take a look at doing a photo shoot then. An important thing to remember about your website is it doesnât have to be perfect, it just has to look good and function correctly. You can always add and change things as you go.
With showing the website who your customer is, I mean when someone enters your website you want them to feel that the aesthetic, vibe, feeling, photos, people, anything the see or feel reflects them and who they are. When your customer sees people that look like them, are around their age, have similar styles, they feel more connected to the website, and more connected to the business. If you were selling swim suits, you would want to show people wearing them, having fun, surfing, on the beach, people are more drawn to the life they are already living or the life they want to live. You can do this with any website, and it doesnât have to be photos of people, but maybe photos of places. Something you can try is posting more aesthetically pleasing photos to your Instagram, and then they can show up if you decide to install the Instagram feed app.
A good website I use to get photos for my socials is Pinterest, and a little hack to find âtrendyâ photos and videos is type in a word or phrase and then add âaestheticâ to the end. It will show you photos that match the word or phrase but wonât be directly on the nose. For example:
Without âaestheticâ added to the end
With âaestheticâ added to the end
Reaching out to influencers it can be a bit tricky sometimes. My suggestions to help with this are to look for small influencers (5k - 10k) who you think would be a good fit for your business. When you find someone check their post comments to see that people are actually engaging with them. When youâre ready to reach out to them look for their email address in their bio. Most influencers will have a professional email and itâs always best to contact them there. You donât want to DM people unless they have no contact information because DMs tend to get lost in their inboxes, and sometimes they wonât see them at all. There is no guarantee you will get a response but keep trying! Here is a great article you can follow with direct steps on how to do this.
You can also check out a new feature within Shopify called Shopify Collabs which is free to use. Watch the video in the link to get more information on how it works!
I think it might also be helpful to you if you join a few communities for small business owners. Even if you donât write a post you can find so much information from other people who might be running into the same things you are, and youâll find people who share their inspiring stories or solutions they found. Here are a couple Iâm in and Iâve learned from:
If youâve never used Reddit before donât be afraid! You only need to make an account if you want to reply or ask a question, and there are A LOT of great communities there with a lot of free information. People are pretty honest with the struggles they have and are genuinely looking for help. It might take some time getting used to the app or browser but itâs worth it.
I know it can be a little discouraging when youâre doing everything on your own, and now going back into the workforce. Donât look at it as failing but instead giving yourself time to figure things out. Iâm currently working full time and running my own small business and it does take a lot of work, but the more I grow the closer I can get to my goals, and I have a steady income so I never feel pressured to make changes. I can take my time to test things out and try new things without taking a financial hit. I would love to work on my business full time but I also want to make sure itâs stable enough to do that before making any big decisions. I watched this video the other day and it was very inspiring for me as Iâm learning more about TikTok and how to make sales there. Check it out.
I think I got to all your questions, hopefully this information is helpful and of course, if you have any other questions that come to mind donât hesitate to reach out.
Rooting for you!
