Most Common Shopify Design Mistakes To Avoid

Shopify design mistakes

There are a lot of ways to increase the success of your online shop. For us, though, we strongly believe that building a strong foundation – a well-designed website – is the most essential step.

After all, most Shopify stores and other similar eCommerce shops don’t have the advantage of owning an actual brick-and-mortar store. The website serves as the shop itself. 

Maximize your earning potential by making sure that your Shopify site is as impressive and user-friendly as possible. In this article, allow us to lend you a hand by sharing the most common Shopify design mistakes along with techniques, tools, and plugins that you can use.

Design Mistake #1: Failing to Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly

Mobile responsiveness should not be treated as an additional feature to a Shopify shop anymore. Instead, it should be a requirement. After all, we are living in a time when almost anything can be accomplished with just a smartphone and decent internet connection, from conducting meetings to finalizing business transactions.

Fortunately, Shopify already includes free, built-in mobile commerce features with their eCommerce plans. Don’t forget to choose a responsive theme as well. This will make your branding more consistent and seamless. 

We particularly enjoy using the website building tool, PageFly. It is an application that allows you to easily design and build your shop with the help of pre-made responsive templates and a spectrum of customization tools. 

This application also has a powerful preview feature that you can use to check how your store looks across all devices before you publish it online. At the very least, you should have an idea how your shop would look on a desktop browser, tablet, and smartphone.

Design Mistake #2: Making Your Navigation Overly Simple or Complicated

Here’s the first rule when you’re just starting a business: you must have a plan. But did you know that this applies to designing your online shop as well? It is crucial to plan the structure of your site and outline its primary and secondary pages. You’ll be able to develop more user-friendly navigation this way. 

Don’t hinder your online visitors’ access by limiting your menu to just your primary pages. On the other hand, you also wouldn’t want to place your entire site map on your menu lest it ends up in a tangled mess.

Those who are having a hard time designing their navigation can check out the tool, Mega Menu. It is a tool that allows you to add a fully customizable and fully responsive menu to your website in just a few clicks.

Feel free to explore all of their features that include multi-level dropdowns, tabs, featured products, and more.

Design Mistake #3: Ignoring Your Site’s Page Loading Time

If there’s one factor that can really impact your sales, especially if you’re only just starting your online store, is your site’s speed. With the ever-increasing network speeds, most people seem to think that when a website is taking its sweet time to load, then there’s probably something wrong with it. 

Online shoppers tend to be very impatient as well. There’s always someone else online offering a similar product or service like yours that won’t make them wait this long. To make it even worse, page loading issues can sometimes be difficult to detect since it’s something that most users rarely complain about. They simply won’t shop on your site instead.

Page Speed Optimizer is a Shopify application we highly recommend if you want to increase your website’s page loading time. It instantly improves loading time with a single click and most of all, it’s free!

Design Mistake #4: Not Having a 404 Page

Not having a custom error page for your Shopify store can set the impression that you are not professional and attentive to details – two qualities that online customers highly value. Fortunately, adding a 404 page is not that hard. In fact, most Shopify themes already come with one. 

If you wish to further customize it, then just locate the template named 404.liquid in your theme, then edit its HTML/CSS.

Design Mistake #5: Ignoring the Small Details

Speaking of attention to detail, there are a lot of budding entrepreneurs who are just too keen to launch their business that they publish their online shop the second they finish uploading their products and services. This results in a boring and generic online shop that not even you would enjoy buying from.

Don’t take this as an excuse to turn your website into a visual explosion of mismatched design elements, though. Unless that’s the aesthetic you’re going to for, we highly recommend giving your website some personality through more discreet details instead. This shows online visitors that a lot of thought and care went into your shop.

Here’s a pro tip: Use microcopy. It is a group of keywords or phrases that serve a specific purpose. Most website owners use them to state quick calls-to-action, but we prefer to strategically use them as helpful yet witty one-liners placed in spots that our online visitors may potentially find confusing.

Design #6: Focusing on the Aesthetics of Your Site over Its Functionality

We all want our Shopify shops to look nice, and as we’ve mentioned above, no one likes a boring site. However, even the most visually impressive online shop wouldn’t sell if your potential customers find it impossible to find the products they want, or if your checkout process takes a century. 

If there’s one function that an online shop can’t live without, that would be the search feature. Fortunately, there are a lot of search applications available in Shopify’s app store. Our personal favorite has got to be Product Search Bar & Filters.

It comes with numerous features that can significantly increase your website’s user experience. These include autocompleting, personalized search results, customizable search filters, and more. 

If you’re looking for something that’s free to use, then you should consider Instant Search+ and Filters instead. It also comes with a variety of customizable features and functions.

Design Mistake #7: Not Giving Your Site a Personal Touch

Finally, don’t forget to give your Shopify site a personal touch. Online shoppers don’t trust websites. Instead, they trust the people who run them. 

You can start with an about page that features you and your team. It wouldn’t hurt to add a little bit of humor. You can also consider sharing personal stories that your online users may find relatable. 

Another idea is to link your social media with your website. With the right plug-ins, you will be able to display your latest social media posts on any webpage you choose.

Finally, you can also add a blog to your online store. This will give you more space to publish relevant content without cluttering up your site. You can share behind-the-scenes stories, new product demos, tutorials, and other relevant information.

Final Thoughts

Designing your own website shouldn’t be rocket science especially since there are a lot of tools and applications that Shopify has made available for their users. Most of the design mistakes website owners commonly make are easy to avoid as well. Just keep the tips we have shared with you above in mind and we are confident that you’ll be able to create an online store that best represents your brand. Good luck!

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