Organizing Your Products Into Collections
Now that we have at least a few individual products listed, we can start organizing them into collections under Product > Collections in Shopify.
Collections can be created to curate products to target a specific audience , a theme , or product category . You can decide if you want to manually add products to certain collections or automate what gets included/excluded based on price, Tags, or other conditions.
Collections serve a variety of purposes, such as:
- Pulling certain products that you want to display in a section on your homepage
- Linking to Collections of products in your navigation or on your homepage to help different audiences quickly navigate your catalog
- Curating items you want to put on sale
For now, Ill be creating a collection for our medium hot sauces. Thats because I want to only include my three individual hot sauce products while excluding the three-pack bundle. This way, I can show off the individual flavors and highlight the bundle separately.
I’m going to fill out the Collection title and description based on how I want to greet visitors when they land on this Collection page. The Search Engine Preview can be filled out using the same best practices we followed for the product pages. You can also set a Collection image, which will be pulled to represent your Collection when we get into customizing the look and feel step of making an online store.
How To Have A New Domain Buying From Shopify
As aforementioned, having a custom domain name is nowadays very popular because of its benefits. Therefore, mostly all merchants want to own a custom domain name for their websites. One of the ways to have a custom name is to pay for one in Shopify. In fact, custom domains purchased through Shopify start at 11 USD per year. Once paid, your domain will be automatically set up for you. Even if you leave Shopify, you still keep its ownership.
Please kindly note that domains purchased through Shopify are registered for 1 year. You can renew it after you cancel your domain or Shopify store. Also, keep in mind that Shopify does not come with unrestricted email forwarding accounts for your domain name and domain purchases are unable to be refunded.
To buy a domain from Shopify, please follow these steps listed below:
How To Update Cname Record
With regard to all the domains that are purchased from any 3rd party vendor such as Fatcow, Hostgator, GoDaddy, and more, you need to get your DNS settings updated and point your A record to Shopifys IP address and CNAME record to shops.myshopify.com
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Step 1. Go to your Domain provider website and sign in to the account with the new Shopify store domain.
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Step 2. Search for DNS settings.
You are allowed to locate your domain account admin panel or the domain management area or DNS configuration, and more, on your own.
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Step 3. When choosing DNS settings, look for a list of editable fields or a table or checkboxes or drop-downs
- Then, add the IP address of Shopify in the destination field Shopifys IP Address: 23.227.38.32
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Save the recently added A record
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Step 4. Now, to point it to Shopify, you need to add CNAME
- Locate CNAME record and get the WWW CNAME record updated to point to shops.myshopify.com
Note: Some domain providers have a Name field with a CNAME record, then add a relevant Name if it is shown.
- Save the CNAME Record
Good job! The CNAME record is now added successfully. Once it is added, you can proceed to verify your new domain for your Shopify store.
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Do I Have To Redirect Every Url From My Old Site
Not necessarily.
Heres the rule: redirect every URL that has a clear corresponding page on the new site. 404 everything else.
Whats a 404?
That just means removing the page so that your site returns a 404 message any time someone tries to access that URL. It tells people that theres nothing there.
A few years ago, I was very anti-404. I used to think that every single URL needed a proper redirect and I went a bit overboard on a site. Eventually, our hosting provider reached out and told us that we had too many redirects on our site we needed to cut them down to 1,500. We had about 2,500 at the time.
They were right, we did have too many. I was paranoid about trying to help users land on the right page. I was also worried about losing any traffic from Google and I thought 404s might reduce our rankings. I was wrong on both counts.
First, users struggle a lot more with weird redirect paths than a 404. A 404 gives a super clear message: the page youre looking for doesnt exist. A weird redirect is really tough for a user to understand.
Second, Google prefers 404s for pages that no longer exist. Its a clear signal for them and they dont reduce rankings for sites that have 404s. Theyve publicly stated numerous times how they only want sites to add redirects for pages that have a one-to-one relationship.
Transfer Shopify Domain To WordPress
WordPress is a PHP-based open-source CMS used in conjunction with a MySQL or MariaDB database. WordPress offers a simplified website design requiring minimal coding. Heres how to transfer your Shopify domain to WordPress:
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Setting Up Your Store For Marketing
In particular, I want to cover the fundamentals of nearly every ecommerce marketing strategy that are important to know for new store owners.
Analytics
Shopify Reports not only helps you monitor traffic and sales generated by your store across all your sales channels but also serves as a treasure trove of great insight for improving your business over time.
You can learn where your traffic and sales are coming from, your overall online store conversion rate, traffic and sales over time, and more.
For more granular analytics and flexible reporting, you can .
Facebook pixel
Have you ever visited an online store, considered a product, but left without buying it, only to see an ad for it a few days later? Or have you ever seen an ad for a product from a business youd never heard of that seemed like it was made for you?
Thats made possible through something called the Facebook pixel, an intelligent code that learns from how people interact with your brand and your websitefrom liking your social media posts to making a purchaseand makes it possible to personalize how you advertise to them over time.
The Facebook pixel learns from all the traffic you send to your online store, so if you plan on advertising on Facebook or Instagram at any point in the future, its important to have your Facebook pixel set up.
You can get clear instructions on how to set it up for your Shopify store by using our free .
Search engine optimization
Prepare Your Domain For Transfer
Before you can transfer your domain to Shopify, you need to unlock your domain and get a transfer authorization code from your domain provider.
When you transfer a domain to Shopify, your domain’s A record and CNAME record are set to Shopify’s default domain records. If additional records are present on your domain before the transfer, then make a copy of those records to add to the Domains section of your Shopify admin after the transfer. For example, you might need to add an MX record to reconnect your domain to an email hosting service.
Note
The process for preparing a domain for transfer varies by third-party domain provider. If you have trouble preparing your domain for transfer, then contact your third-party domain provider. Shopify Support can’t log in to your third-party domain account for you, even if you give your explicit permission.
Steps:
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Prepare Domain For Transfer From Squarespace
If you do utilize a third party, look for similar instructions to unlock your domain and obtain the unique authentication code.
What Is The Concept Of Shopify Domain Forwarding
Domain forwarding refers to the process of connecting a third-party domain to your Shopify store. In other words, you want to configure the domain DNS settings so that it points to your store whenever someone tries to access it. By connecting your store to a pre-existing domain, you can continue using the same hosting service you are comfortable with and avoid unnecessary hassle. Furthermore, should you require Shopify migration services, you can get in touch with a Shopify web development company.
How long does it take to transfer the domain to Shopify?
The speed of transfer changes from host to host, but, for the most part, it can take between 24 hours to 15 days. For more information, you can contact the Shopify support and maintenance services of a development company.
Changing domain hosting providers is a big decision and should not be taken lightly. Therefore, whether you want to move to or away from Shopify, consider hiring a Shopify web development companys services. In doing so, you get access to Shopify migration services, Shopify web design services and Shopify support.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I buy my domain through Shopify?
What will happen to my domain if I close my Shopify store?
If you purchased a standard domain name through Shopify, the domain would shut down along with the store. On the other hand, if you procured a custom domain name, you have the option of transferring it to a new CMS of your choosing.
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Review Your Domain Provider’s Transfer Policy
Before you begin the transfer process, check your domain provider’s transfer policy to make sure that domain transfers are supported. Most domain providers support domain transfers, but some don’t. You can find your domain provider’s transfer policy by searching their help center for transfer domain:
Is Network Solutions Snatching Domain Names
Numerous reports confirm that Network Solutions, the well-known domain registry company, is automatically registering domain names when individuals search for a potential name using its sites search tools.
This was first reported in a forum message in DomainState, a news and discussion site for Internet site owners. In the message, a domain owner and developer who goes by the handle Stratagenix reported, Network Solutions has instituted a four-day lock on all domain names searched on their site. They are effectively using phishing techniques to hijack or steal domain names and forcing domain name registrants to register their names at Network Solutions. The standard domain name registration fee at Network Solutions is $34.99-significantly higher than the leading alternatives. I was forced to register a domain name with them today or chance losing it to another registrant.
In a follow-up story at DomainNameNews, a reporter confirmed that after using the popular whois tool on the Network Solution site to search for a domain name, they then found that the site had been registered to a private registrant, but that the domain name was still available from Network Solutions. At other domain registry sites, however, such as Dotster and GoDaddy, the domain name was unavailable.
Whois Server Version 2.0
Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net for detailed information.
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Adding A Custom Domain
Buying a domain is like claiming land on the internet. Thats why its called a web address.
A custom domain is a fully branded URL that replaces the default URL that was created based on the store name you chose at setup .
Under Online Store > Domains, you can buy your domain directly through Shopify in a matter of seconds, or you can transfer your domain from another registrar and connect it to your store.
Since the .com is taken, Ill be buying the .shop extension for KindaHotSauce through Shopify. KindaHotSauce.shop is now my store’s URL.
Setting Up Payment Gateways And Payouts
Were in the final stretch! Next up is deciding how your store will accept payments and how you as a store owner will get paid.
Go to Settings > Payments to set up your payment provider. Shopify has made it easy to start accepting all major forms of payment with Shopify Payments. As long as you operate your business in one of the supported countries and arent considered a prohibited business, you can activate Shopify Payments in just one click and pay 0% in extra transaction fees. You can also choose from over 100 third-party payment providers here or offer your customers additional payment options, such as PayPal.
In my case, Ill Complete Account Setup for Shopify Payments by entering my business and banking information. I can also Manage my settings for Shopify Payments and do things like:
The currency you sell your products in can be set under Settings > General. I’m going to be selling in US dollars since it will be familiar for both US and Canadian customers.
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