The Easiest Guide To Using Shopify To Grow Your Online Business

Google Analytics is a powerful friend in the eCommerce war for customer money. It delivers a plethora of information about your site, your users, and where they came from in its insights. This data may be used to attract new clients and boost conversions.

For many new eCommerce entrepreneurs, Google Analytics can be a perplexing jumble of technical reports and data that's tough to read and comprehend.

What Exactly is Shopify?

Shopify is an online store platform that allows you to create your own online business. Tobias Lutke founded Shopify in 2004, and it is now headquartered in Ottawa, Canada. Shopify is a hosted solution and software-as-a-service tool accessed through a monthly subscription. Shopify is traded on the TSX and NYSE under the ticker name SHOP. Many people advocate Shopify as a platform for creating a versatile, scalable online store with a feature set that allows for customization. Shopify's goal was to make it simple for anyone to start an online store from scratch. They have, in our perspective, achieved that purpose.

Benefits of Shopify:

Simple to Set Up and Use:

Starting a Shopify store is a simple procedure that can be completed in hours after creating an account. Whether you're starting from scratch or using Shopify's pre-made themes, creating a store may be completed quickly.

Shopify is a complete and straightforward option for businesses looking to increase their online offerings. One advantage is that it includes everything you'll need to run a successful online business. You don't have to bother about hosting a website, for example. You don't need any technical knowledge to get started with the store. Technical capabilities expand your options for customizing your store, but they aren't required to get started.

Online Store that is Design-Friendly:

Shopify presently offers eight stunning and professional free themes. Whether you're selling a single product or a line of products, each piece serves a particular purpose. The free themes are a good starting point for future customization, but they're all you'll need to get started. At the very least, the free articles are designed to provide the most excellent possible first-time user experience design to increase purchases. Businesses can match their branding with the paid premium themes, which offer more unique designs. Premium themes can range in price from $140 to $180, and they can be fully previewed before purchase. Every Shopify theme is responsive and optimized, whether premium or free. Another advantage of Shopify themes is that they allow you to construct specific landing pages for your online marketing initiatives. The implementation of landing pages can significantly enhance conversion rates.

Security in an Online Store:

Shopify's security and dependability are two of its most essential features. Personal and financial information must be kept safe in a modern online store. A Shopify store is secure for your online customers and you, the owner. Shopify's assurance of 99.8% uptime is crucial for online store stability. It means that clients from all around the world can visit your store at any time. SSL certificates are included with every store, enhancing security and trust. Shopify is used by over a million merchants, ranging from small businesses to huge organizations, to run their online storefronts.

Google Analytics: Why Do You Need It?

You can see your customer if you have a physical storefront. You can observe their habits and converse with them. An online store without eCommerce analytics and related KPIs keeps you ignorant of any information about your visitors and customers that you would otherwise see. Google Analytics can assist you in better understanding the success of your marketing activities, understanding your visitors, and optimizing your store for conversions and sales.

Is Shopify Analytics Available?

If you're new to selling on Shopify, you might be wondering if the platform has its analytics tools. After all, you pay for a Shopify subscription with the expectation that it will provide you with all of the tools you need to operate and develop your business. Many people expected Shopify to give its answer, but it turned out to be the opposite. Many e-commerce businesses are unaware that they must link Google Analytics or another third-party solution with their websites to track sales and other crucial data. Google Analytics is, after all, a gold standard in data collection, and it contains capabilities tailored to eCommerce stores. It's tough to create a solution with the same level of utility.

So Shopify took the easy route and just gave its users the choice to add Google Analytics to their website. This is excellent news for any vendor because Google Analytics is free and allows you to collect information.

Step-by-Step Guide to Integrating Google Analytics with Shopify

Adding Google Analytics to your Shopify store is a simple process. Shopify provides a comprehensive step-by-step guide that walks you through the technical aspects of the process. It isn't difficult on its own. Using Google Analytics in your Shopify store is the central question here. The accurate data you obtain from Google is more important to you as a seller. And this is when things could become a little tricky.

Getting Things Ready:

The first step in the procedure is integrating Google Analytics into your store. What's more crucial is that it's put up correctly. This is the next step you must take. The entire procedure can be broken down into smaller, more manageable steps:

Create a Store View by Following These Steps:

Data is collected, saved, and displayed to you in graphs and charts in a view. A store should have at least two arguments: a plain sight with no filters and a picture with some filters. The former is essentially a backup of your entire store's data.

Create Filters by Following These Steps:

Then you must apply some filters to the data to structure and narrow it down. In the Account area on the left, you can use global filters to all views or apply filters to specific ideas.

Begin by excluding IP addresses. The IP addresses of your office or remote employees' computers should be banned. If there isn't enough room for all of your IPs, use Regex. Then go ahead and add any more filters that you require.

Activate Bot Filtering:

Another crucial choice is to enable bot screening. Allow it to clean your data of spam visits if you like. Go to View Settings and uncheck the box that says, "Exclude all hits from known bots and spiders."

Add the Devices:

The type of device is another filter you should use. If you do that, you'll need to design two separate views: one for Mobile and one for desktop. For example, apply the mobile filter to a statement, pick Custom filter type, Device category -> Mobile from the drop-down menu, and Save.

Adding Tracking to the Mix:

Now that you've removed the irrelevant data, you'll need to add some data that isn't included by default in Google Analytics. The following are the primary types of data you'll need to keep track of:

Demographics Tracking:

This is an important step that many Shopify store owners overlook. This information can help you figure out who your consumers are. To turn it on, go to Admin -> Property Settings and adjust the slider next to "Enable Demographics and Interest Reports."

Tracking of Site Searches:

You must understand what your clients are looking for in your store. To enable it, go to Admin -> View -> View Setting -> Site Search Setting in your Analytics account.

Avoid these Blunders:

Here are several novice mistakes to avoid right away.

First and foremost, don't get too caught up in so-called "vanity measures." Rather than focusing on the number of visitors who come to your site, focus on the number of conversions. That is, how many of those visitors purchase from you.

Second, don't handle all of your visitors/customers differently. Each visitor to your online store has a unique buying experience based on various criteria such as the device they use, their age, how they found your website in the first place, and so on. In fact, according to a recent study, around 33% of Shopify store owners do not use the demographics tracking feature in Google Analytics.

You may be tempted to look at average numbers in your analytics. Instead, divide your visitor data into segments and study each section separately. You might be startled to discover a significant difference in conversion rates between your mobile and desktop customers: mobile consumers do not convert as well as desktop users. This data provides more insight than simply seeing the average number of conversions for each sector. It advises you to assess how effectively your website is optimized for mobile devices at the very least.

A third typical blunder is focusing on non-representative data samples. These are what are known as outliers. Essentially, they are data samples that differ significantly from the typically received data. On analytics graphs, they appear as unexpected spikes or low points. As a result, you should not make conclusions based on these anomalies.

Conclusion:

Overall, Shopify includes all of the features you'll need to run a successful online store. Compared to all other platforms, Shopify isn't ideal, but it holds its own. Its pricing is reasonable and similar to other available options. Shopify is perfect for new online store owners, yet it also includes more advanced features for those who require them. If you're running an online business that has the potential to develop, Shopify is a platform to consider. When your business grows, you can quickly scale up or down your Shopify store to meet your current demands.