Checklist To Follow Before Your Shopify Site Launch

After all the hard work & efforts by your development team, the Shopify store is finally ready and you are really excited about its launch.

Thousands of thoughts will come into your mind and you maybe get nervous while thinking about whether you have completed all essential things for a smooth launch day. Are all the catalog products have been uploaded correctly, is the marketing plan completed for promoting the store? Does the store look trustworthy? and many more.

Checking things aimlessly in your store is a waste of time, instead, you must take a methodical approach to your launch. The best way is to create a checklist and then check the things as per the list. In this article, we will go through the essential items of a Shopify store launch checklist, how it is important, and many other things. Continue reading to know how to run a smooth launch of your Shopify store.

Why Is A Shopify Store Launch Checklist Is So Important?

You have created an amazing UI of your store, the products have been uploaded and the social accounts have been set up. But still, is there anything left? An e-commerce store has so many moving parts, that it is normal to miss a critical step.

For a successful site launch, a checklist can reduce ambiguity and streamline the work that must get done. Every project requires a checklist before its execution and an e-commerce store is no different. A good checklist provides reminders of the most critical & important steps which even highly skilled professionals can miss. A checklist will eliminate errors and decrease complications.

Your Shopify Store Launch Checklist

• Addition Of Available Sales Channels
• Add A Custome Domain
• Double-Check Your payment gateway settings
• Standard pages preparation
• FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
• Check the e-mail notification settings
• Auditing of Site Content
• Image optimization

1. Addition Of Available Sales Channels

As per a survey by the Harvard Business Review in 2017, only 7% of the buyers go online to purchase things, the customers’ base is growing multi-channel. Among these 73% of the buyers prefer to go multiple channels for a single purchase.

To get maximum benefits of multi-channel retailing for your online store, find out what other sales channels your target audience chooses, and then add those sales channels to your store. A few examples of the popular sales channels are:

• Amazon
• eBay
• Social channels such as Facebook, Instagram, etc.
• Google Shopping

Shopify comes with an easy functionality of integrating the sales channels where you can keep track of orders, products, and customers across all platforms.

2. Add A Custom Domain

Generally, this is a thing that we do before even developing the store but sometimes it may be the last thing that may come to your mind. A custom domain gives your site a better recognition and the users can also easily remember it.

The general approach to find a domain name starts with the business name availability and if is already being used by another business in your industry, then you have to try some alternatives.

3. Double-Check Your Payment Gateway Settings

The payment mechanism is the core of your checkout process. Thus, you need to make that things are smooth at the end of the purchasing journey. All the provided payment options should work smoothly with the best user experience and flow. Place a test order with a live payment gateway to make sure everything works.

4. Standard Pages Preparation

There must be static pages of your company and info by which the visitors can know about your company. We recommend a few pages that must include in your sitemap:

• HomePage

It doesn’t need to mention that there must be a homepage of your store where the customer’s journey should starts. We have mentioned this as we have found certain e-commerce stores where the user directly lands on the product listing page. A homepage not just gives insights into your catalog but also helps the user to navigate to your site and other important static pages.

• Contact

A contact page is essential in your store by which the customers can ask you questions, or reach out for any queries. You must provide all different ways by which a customer can reach you such as e-mail, call, chat, etc. A contact form is a great way for customers by which they can send you a message without leaving your site.

• About

The purpose of the about page is to tell users your company story, its vision, and other things that users should know about your business. Many ecommerce stores overlook this page but it can also be an effective sales tool if approached with the strategy.

5. FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

A FAQs page is a great way to interact with your customers by giving answers to the frequent queries raised by customers. At the start, you may don’t know which questions customers will ask the most. For that, you can look at your competitors’ queries. Generally, customers have queries regarding return policy, shipping charges, warranty, etc. A FAQ page allows you to add necessary keywords within the questions or answers, thus optimizing SEO.

6. Check The E-mail Notification Settings

E-mail marketing is still in trend and is one of the most powerful tools for online store owners. In the Shopify store, you get many different e-mail templates that you can customize as per your site’s theme, business, or industry. Edit your e-mail templates and create sequences that nurture your list and ultimately drive sales. You can use the following e-mails in your Shopify store:

• Welcome series
• E-receipts
• Abandoned cart notifications
• Order confirmation
• Shipping notifications

7. Auditing Of Site Content

Content is something that we generally don’t check before the site launch. Its responsibility is always given to the marketing or content team. However, a brief overview will let you find any mistakes like spelling, grammar, or broken links.

Also, content consistency is a very important thing. You must adopt a particular type of grammar or language like if you have followed British English then you shouldn’t use American English. In the technical aspect, you need to look out for broken links, 404s in particular and image-rendering issues & mobile responsiveness.

8. Image Optimization

High-quality images are the glamour of your site however, if they are too heavy in size then they can impact the performance and user experience. The site will load slow and this, in turn, will affect the search engine rankings of your site. Thus, it is necessary that all the images on your site should be optimized for fast loading times.

Here Is A Brief Of How To Optimize The Images On Your Store

1. Give Your Image’s Description

Image description improves the SEO ranking of your site and individual product pages. Use proper keywords related to your products.

2. Alt Attributes Optimization

Alt attributes are used for web accessibility and SEO. Again give proper Alt description considering target keywords.

3. Reduce Image Sizes

The heavy images look better but reduce the site speed. There are many tools available by which you can reduce the size of the image without degrading its quality.

4. Choose The Right File Type

The common type images used are .jpg or .png but you can also use a .gif for thumbnails or decorative images.

5. Thumbnails Optimization

Thumbnails are on the whole e-commerce site, especially in product thumbnails. That’s why they can have an impact on page load times. Make sure you use an optimized thumbnail image.

6. Use An Analytic Tool

Data is the most important asset that you get when a user browses your site irrespective of whether he made a purchase or not. You can use this data to know about your customers and how to improve the customer experience.

Shopify comes with an in-built analytics tool, but you can also use any 3^rd party analytics tool such as Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a widely renowned analytics tool that gives you insights into every minute user behavior. The other tools are SE  Ranking, Piwik, and Adobe Analytics.

You Should Be Ready With A Pre-Launch Marketing Plan

After launching the site, you will want to make people know about y our site. The best way to achieve this is by a marketing plan.

Create proper documentation of your marketing plan so that after going live, you have to work on the outlined steps.

1. Check Your Tax & Shipping Rates

Many vendors always forget about this configuration which may impact the user’s journey at the last minute. The tax settings and shipping rate should be appropriate for the products you are selling. Else, you may lose all your profits or your customers by charging them extra.

2. Install Only Essential Apps

Shopify App Store is having tons of apps that can increase the functionality of your store. But you shouldn’t be using any unnecessary app. Only use those apps which are required for the functionality you want to provide.

3. Set Up Your Billing Information

If you are coming to the end of your 14-day free trial, set up your store’s billing information to ensure there aren’t any hiccups when your store is finally live.

Wrapping Up

In this article, we have gone through the ultimate Shopify store launch checklist that you must go through before launching your Shopify store. At Emizentech, the best Shopify development company, we go through each critical measure of the Shopify store and delivers you a perfect e-commerce store as per your requirement. Our developers are having vast experience in developing Shopify stores from scratch. Let us know your requirements.