Sometimes, your Shopify website’s appearance goes under your expectations even when you’ve got an excellent theme. Or perhaps you are using a free theme that lacks some desired elements. Or, you are new to Shopify.
If you want to edit and make small changes to your Shopify theme, take a look at this article and find some editing Shopify website tips that fit your intentions.
Table of Contents
How to edit and customize your Shopify theme
There are several options for you to edit your Shopify theme.
Use visual customization tools
In this option, you can work with some existing features that your theme provides without any coding knowledge. However, note that what and how to customize is limited.
To enter the customization window, go to your Online Store → Themes. Click the button “Customize” that accords with your chosen theme.
If you want to edit any specific page template, find the drop-down menu at the top of the window. You can add or remove sections on the left sidebar. Then, click Theme settings to edit colors, typography, theme styles, etc.
Use code
In contrast to previous options, editing code involves various customizations, but basic to advanced coding skills. If you are struggling with this, read below guides to see how we help to edit code on Shopify?
The Edit code function is easy to find after you click the “Action” button as below. A tip to not breaking your theme is to make a duplicate copy of it.
Depending on what you want to edit (e.g. layout, templates, sections, etc.), you can add or edit code in the corresponding files.
Other options
Customizing or editing code might be too complex for you to understand. In that case, an alternative is to seek help from Shopify experts or experienced Shopify merchants.
There are many interesting topics with guides on the Shopify Community, but you might have to scan through a lot of conversations and be overwhelmed. To get quick results that fit your goals perfectly, you can consider HappyPoints as a reference. We are offering a free store set-up service so you can be assured to experience our service.
There are many interesting theme tips and code tutorials on our blogs, so stay tuned to find out what they are.
Tips to edit the most important features of the Shopify theme
For better understanding, in this part, we’ll walk you through all the main pages on your site and show you tips to customize key features on each page.
Edit Shopify homepage
A successful design homepage can bring the opportunity to strengthen brand visibility and engage users’ interest. It also, in the long term, drive sales.
Therefore, you should learn more about what can not be missed on a homepage. Or you can take the following features into account if you want to customize and make a better homepage.
Edit Footer
Upgrading your footer is likely to result in a 24% boost in sales conversion [1].
Our team surveyed over 500 Shopify stores and listed out all the important features for a well-designed Shopify footer with visual instructions to add or edit them.
One feature that receives the highest attention (around 1,300 searches per month in the US) is to remove Powered by Shopify (without apps). The reason is that many Shopify stores want to look more professional and establish a better brand image, as well as make customers see them as authentic.
Edit mega menu
Visitors might feel challenged to navigate within a website by a complicated-looking regular drop-down menu. So why not try a mega menu. It shows all products grouped into categories, which greatly influences UX and web usability.
If you are still unsure about whether your site needs a mega menu or not, check out our article on different cases of adding a mega menu to your Shopify store.
For any of you who want to add a mega menu by yourself at ease, we recommend you read our article on how to add a mega menu without apps and do it step by step. You will easily achieve your goals!
Add logo size
It is well-known that a logo builds a brand and a brand builds a logo. And especially, if you are building a logo for your Shopify website, you may have to follow a specific step-by-step guideline. Explore what is the best Shopify logo size and how to adjust logo size to Shopify stores for more details.
Add social proofs and testimonials
71% of shoppers will make their buying decision based on positive referrals on the site. It has proven the necessity of having social proof on your Shopify store.
There are different types of social proof that are well-mentioned in our article about Shopify social proof. You can also get more insights about tips and ways to add them.
Testimonials are a dominant form of social proof. They involve either a customer’s review, a third-party award, a star-based rating, or any in-depth case study. Read more about Shopify testimonials and how to effectively add them to your Shopify store.
Add an announcement bar
You probably joined some discussions related to the announcement bar in the Shopify community. But are you still stuck on how to use and customize it?
Let us recall the influence of an announcement bar on your Shopify store visibility. An announcement bar is a snippet on the upper part of a webpage, called a sticky bar, notification bar, etc. It keeps your customers from missing out on important information during their web journeys.
There are 4 ways to use the Shopify announcement bar, as well as various tips to best customize and optimize it for any theme.
Edit Shopify collection page
You never want a potential visitor to come to your store and never come back. It might happen because they don’t find their required products due to an unclassified product listing. Hence, we can say that a collection plays a role in keeping your visitors in your store and turning them into customers. Here is how to create a Shopify collection page.
Unfortunately, your Shopify store doesn’t support creating any sub-collection, as there are no parent or child collections in their store. However, we have come up with a perfect solution that you can use to create Shopify sub-collections with link lists.
Edit Shopify product page
When selling on Shopify, another important consideration is the product page, in addition to the home page.
So why is the Shopify product page important in any Shopify store?
- It is a customer magnet
- It helps to build brand
- It is a perfect place to cross-sell and up-sell
Find out more tips to optimize your Shopify product page. There are many features to add or edit on a product page. But these features below should be on your initial list:
Add tabs
Shopify doesn’t support you to add tabs to a product page. So you might look for a Shopify app store. But don’t worry! Check out our article. We will tell you how to add tabs to your Shopify product page without an app. And it’s just only 10 min without a technical background!
Add a product countdown timer
A product countdown timer is powerful in pushing online shoppers into making faster purchase decisions. You could even do it by yourself without a technical background or an app. Check our article to find more!
Create product tags
A Shopify product tag is not important in the initial steps to create a Shopify store. But it shouldn’t be ignored because it’s to improve the overall customer experience. Learn more about how a product tag affects your store and how to create it on specific products or through a list.
Create trust badges
We surveyed our Shopify customers and found out that trust badges or trust seals are among the most important factors they consider when buying online. Some popular trust badges include accepted payment badges, money-guarantee badges, free shipping badges, etc.
There is a lot to do with your trust badges. So spend time reading this article to grasp all the insights and understand how to add them.
Edit Shopify cart page
A cart page is the last step of an e-commerce journey, right before the checkout page. It maintains a record of your customers’ want-to-buy items. Without it, the purpose of your customer journey remains unreachable.
We will list out some of the necessary features to add to a cart page:
- Stock availability
- A call-to-action to the checkout page
- Coupon codes
- Shipping cost calculator
- Cart drawer
- And do not forget to advise your customers of any product recommendation, based on their preferences on a cart page. Read more here!
Other Shopify theme customization
Now you’ve gone through all the important features on your main pages. This part will give you some more exciting features that show up on all pages and help you optimize your user experience.
Add different currencies
To well-manage an international business, it’s better to communicate with your visitors in their mother tongue. This relies not only on the language switcher but also on the multiple currencies selector.
By adding multi-currency, you can save your visitors time doing the math to calculate the price, then leave a good impression on them.
HappyPoints has created a visual guide to help your multiple currencies selector go live. Let’s check it out.
Add breadcrumbs
A mega menu is not the only navigation tool that you can benefit from. Breadcrumb, appearing as a text line at the top of your website, allows visitors to navigate back and forth during their shopping journey. It’s most helpful in the case of filtering on the collection page.
There are 3 typical types of breadcrumb and 2 ways to add breadcrumb to your Shopify store. And if you are wondering about which type is suitable for you, we also provide some useful tips on that.
Create pop-up email newsletter form
Regarding conversion rate and customer retention, it’s a big mistake not to mention the email newsletter form. Only the default sign-up form that Shopify allows you to add to your homepage or footer is not enough.
You need an attractive pop-up form to catch visitors’ attention and boost your promotion programs. Besides learning to create a pop-up newsletter sign-up form, you can apply 9 techniques to make the best of it.
Add products to blog posts
Blogging is the cheapest way to increase traffic and enhance your customer engagement. Therefore, it’s high-converting to insert your prioritized and relevant products into some of the most traffic-attracting posts.
You can add products to blog posts using product names or product tags. This process will require coding and include 3 steps, so dig in our tutorial carefully to make everything work.
Edit CTA button
Last but not least, you might hear about the importance of CTA to conversion thousands of times. Every shop owners need to guide their visitors on what to do next. Otherwise, they will wander around your website without buying or leaving any useful information.
Check out this step-by-step guide if you are using WordPress and struggling to add a Shopify buy button.
We also recommend you optimize your CTA button with engaging visuals, text, and position. This is because, for example, using only the word “submit” can even lower your conversion rates by 3% [2]. So, be very careful with your CTA.
Final words
Customizing Shopify themes is essential to bring the best experience to your visitors and increase sales. With that said, you need to edit the code files or hire help to gain the most effective tweaks to your website. Therefore, you can spend more time managing and strategizing your business and have quick results in your revenue.
Our HappyPoints team is willing to help any small and medium merchants from the tiniest changes on your site to a big project. If you still have any queries, feel free to connect with us.
Reference
[2]. https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/how-to-optimize-contact-forms/
