Whether you’re working for a client taking their offline store online, finally leaving Magento behind or looking for an online business refresh - Shopify has become a go-to for ecommerce. The e-commerce sector in the UK is booming, and it’s predicted that in 2025, over 62.1 million people will prefer to shop online.

This creates a great opportunity for businesses looking to boost their profits and reach new audiences. But to successfully ride the e-commerce revolution, you need to have a well-designed and bug-free website.

Whether you’re a business owner or developer, it’s easy to get carried away in the day to day and overlook some of the essentials when putting a new website live. If you’re planning to go live with a new website on Shopify, there are many questions that need to be answered first. Is your website search engine optimised? Are the contact details updated? And so much more.

That’s why it’s crucial to follow a Shopify website launch checklist to make sure you remember every pre-launch step, preparing your website to offer your customers an exceptional experience.

1. Create a Custom Domain

The first item on your Shopify launch checklist is to get a personalised domain name. Your domain name is your store’s address on the Internet, and should be representative of your brand and its personality. Generic or complicated risks getting lost among thousands of similar brands on the web.

Personalised domain names are easier for your customers to remember, which will help you build brand loyalty and appear trustworthy and genuine. You may struggle to find a domain name, as other businesses might have registered the name you want. In this case, you’ll need to get creative and find a variation or a different URL suffix (eg .digital or .store instead of .com).

2. Select the Right Theme for Your eCommerce Store

Just as you’d spend time decorating your physical store, you also need to take the time to select the right website theme. This isn’t something you should ignore on your website launch checklist.

With so many free and premium Shopify themes to choose from you’re almost certain to find a base for your new store.

Choose a theme that’s aesthetic and functional, and matches your brand’s personality and inventory. For example, you probably wouldn’t choose a dark, corporate theme for a children’s toy store.

Here are some key website design tips for small businesses:

Make sure your theme is compatible with different devices
Ensure there’s enough white space
Check that the theme is easy to navigate and responsive

3. Get the Content and Graphics Created

The next item on your Shopify website launch checklist is to sort the graphics and content. Your content is like your digital salesperson, so it needs to be persuasive, without being pushy. If you’re a product-based brand, graphics and photos are key to your brand's sales.

Your website copy will need to be search engine optimised and include keywords relevant to your brand and industry. Images should have alt-text, which is a description of each image so that Google and other search engines can understand them. Additionally, make sure you proofread all content that’s uploaded on your website, including the about us, homepage, contact, product, and blog pages.

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4. Brush Up on SEO

If you’ve ever searched ‘how to launch a new website’ you’ll know the importance of building your Shopify website’s SEO. Search engine optimisation has become a vital element of any website’s success, since good SEO will improve your placement on the SERP (search engine results page) and drive organic traffic.

Some important SEO tips include integrating keywords across your web pages and optimising meta descriptions and meta titles. You should also ensure your pages load quickly and you absolutely must have an SSL certificate for your website. This will ensure a high level of security for your business and user data while improving your technical SEO score. Writing blog posts that offer insight into your product or service creation process and industry trends can also be a valuable SEO strategy.

Another helpful SEO practice is to submit your sitemap to popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. This helps search engines better recommend your site to potential customers.

5. Review The Checkout Process

A very important point on your website launch checklist is to ensure your checkout process is not only streamlined and hassle-free, but actually works. Did you know the global cart abandonment rate is 70%? The customer journey from product page to billing and checkout needs to be seamless and speedy.

An important part of your checkout process is to integrate different payment gateways. This includes not just credit and debit card payment options, but also alternative payment options such as Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and so on. Check that discount codes, taxes, and shipping rates are automatically applied.

You should also offer an option for the customer to edit their order details on the checkout page. If you accept international orders, then you’ll want to add a multi-currency feature.

6. Set up Tax and Shipping Rate

Before you launch your website, set up the taxes and shipping rates. Wrongfully charging taxes or shipping can affect your e-commerce business’s profits as well as how you’re perceived by customers, and could even lead to legal action.

If you’re not sure, we’d recommend working with an accountant or financial advisor to help make sure your taxes and shipping rates are optimal.

7. Integrate Helpful Applications and APIs

The Shopify Apps store is a great place to find helpful plugins and applications to integrate with your website. You can find plugins for marketing, customer support, discounts, email marketing, and payment gateways. And while you’re adding new apps, you’ll want to remove any unnecessary applications that aren’t required to prevent them from slowing down your website.

It is also important to monitor your website analytics from Shopify’s backend, so you can make changes whenever required. Some important metrics you should be measuring are customer lifetime value, average order value, shopping cart abandonment rate, and bounce rate.

Wrapping Up

Remember to conduct a thorough review before launching your website. You should always place a test order to understand the checkout experience and ensure the payment gateway is working as intended. Finally, once you’ve completed the Shopify website launch checklist, you’ll be ready to make the site public.

With a tool like QualityHive, you allow seamless communication between developer and customer, closely monitoring the progress of the website development through our interactive Kanban board, and streamlining project operations to save time.