9 Tips to Optimize a Shopify Store for Mobile (Updated for 2024)

How to Optimize a Shopify Store for Mobile

In 2021, all global e-commerce consumers were reported to spend 100 billion (!) hours on shopping applications. According to Insider Intelligence, mCommerce sales will top $543 billion by 2024, accounting for 40.4% of total eCommerce sales.

It’s also worth noting that millennials and Generation Z prefer to buy things online through mobile shopping apps. And Shopify is a wonderful platform for creating a smooth mobile user experience.

Consumers now expect functionality and design that are specifically designed for mobile devices.

This Shopify mobile optimization guide will help you make your store more competitive and user-friendly.

mobile optimization

What are the advantages of a mobile-friendly Shopify store design?

As consumers rely more on smartphones and tablets, companies must think about making their Shopify stores mobile-friendly. As an online store owner, what benefits will you receive?

Here is the answer.

Create the Perfect Experience

You can take control of the entire customer journey, from product discovery to checkout. You’ll have a personalized website design, personalized recommendations, and convenient payment alternatives to provide a frictionless experience that keeps people returning.

Higher Conversion Rate and decreased Bounce Rate

Customers, the majority of whom utilize mobile devices, are most likely to purchase your products. If your website is not mobile-friendly, you risk losing many potential customers.

For example, with a page load speed of 1 second, the average conversion rate is over 40%, but this percentage reduces to 29% when your website pages load in 3 seconds. As a result, proper mobile optimization can help you increase conversions while decreasing bounce rates.

Go Global, Sell Everywhere

The world is your store! Reach a larger audience than any physical business ever could. Overcome geographic barriers and expand into new customer segments to achieve exponential growth.

9 tips to optimize a Shopify store for mobile

1: Use a fixed navigation bar

Make sure the navigation bar is easily accessible from any page. A permanent navigation bar is required for an optimal user experience on mobile devices.

Keep the menu bar visible while allowing mobile users to browse and locate exactly what they want.

If you want to add a sticky toolbar to your Shopify store’s mobile version, follow the following procedures.

Steps for Creating a Mobile Sticky Bar in Shopify:

Step 1: Log in to your Shopify Admin Dashboard.

Step 2: From the left menu, select Online Store > Themes. In Shopify, click the Customize button next to the theme where you wish to install the sticky toolbar.

Shopify Dashboard

Step 3: Select the Sections icon and navigate to the Sticky Toolbar Mobile option.

Toolbar Mobile option

Step 4: Click the Sticky Toolbar Mobile menu and choose the option that best suits your needs.

Sticky Toolbar Mobile menu

Step 5: Select your preferred adjustments by clicking the Sticky Toolbar Mobile menu.

Sticky Toolbar Mobile menu

Mobile e-commerce sites should always have three things: a homepage link, a checkout link, and an “add to cart” call to action. These exact items depend on the industry, projects and client’s requirements.

2: Use Impressive Visuals

Visual content has the great ability to boost eCommerce conversions. Even if your online store’s theme is mobile-friendly, you can experience problems with the correct image presentation. So, displaying Shopify with adaptable pictures is essential for a good mobile user experience.

  • Examine your eCommerce store on your cellphone.
  • Examine how photos are cropped, banners are sized, and video or other rich media is presented.

If your product images are pixelated or your banners are cropping off the main product, it may hurt how consumers view your website.

Several visual materials work well on Shopify websites. Let’s take a look at seven that have the highest potential to help drive conversions in your online business.

1: Product galleries include photography

A photo gallery lets you tell a visual story about your entire brand, product category, product line, or product.

Adding on-brand lifestyle photos to your product photography enhances its emotional impact and helps potential customers see themselves utilizing the product.

Lifestyle photography 

Lifestyle photography captures individuals utilizing your items and tells a story.

Lifestyle photography 

Show them how your product can improve their lives. You will undoubtedly create excitement if you thoroughly understand your customer’s needs!

Detailed Product Images

Detailed product images may include:

  • Multiple product images from various angles to showcase critical elements and important aspects (such as the online bookstore Assouline).
  • Zoom capability with huge, high-quality photos allows customers to have a close-up look at minute details.
  • 360-degree views of the product to simulate its physical appearance.

Product Images

2: Integrating Social Media

When a customer shares a snapshot of your product on a social media platform, you have just become one of the best sources of excitement and inspiration!

Finding a method to incorporate all of that consumer enthusiasm while simultaneously having the product shoppable on your Shopify store has numerous benefits.

It can help you develop stronger relationships with your consumers and fans, expand your customer base, increase repeat purchases, and raise your brand’s visibility.

3: Color Palette 

The colors you employ on your Shopify site reflect not just your brand identity, but also play an important part in driving on-site conversions. A consistent color palette throughout your site enhances a user-friendly UX and directs buyers’ attention to your calls to action.

4: Position your product front-facing and center

Product images are visuals that require special attention. The success of mobile apps such as Instagram and Snapchat demonstrates that mobile surfing is primarily about the visual experience.

Given that online customers primarily base their purchasing decisions on the visual aspect of a product, product photography should be prominently displayed on all pages of a mobile e-commerce design.

It would also be helpful if you provided alt text for each image, compressed the image file size for faster page loading, and cropped the photos for optimal placement on your website..

Football

4:  Mobile Page Loading Speed

Is it worth waiting for a webpage to load?

People are impatient, so Google devised a method to assess and incorporate site speed into how it ranks webpages in search results.

There are two major measurements used to assess speed:

  • One is how long the page takes for content on a URL to load.
  • Second is how  well your website performs overall.

Google PageSpeed Insights, for example, scores it by aggregating multiple load times on your site.

However, several things can affect page speed. Some of the most important are:

  • How many photos, movies, and other media assets are there on the page?
  • Which themes and plugins are installed on your website?
  • Coding and server-side scripts for your website (and certain pages)

Here are quick ideas to speed up your website and improve the consumer experience:

  • Optimize your photos: Large image files can slow down your website. Use compression technologies to reduce image file sizes while maintaining quality.
  • Minimize the code: Remove any extraneous code, such as unwanted scripts or stylesheets, to make your website load faster.
  • Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN): A CDN can help distribute your site’s content to servers worldwide, decreasing load times for users in various countries.
  • Enable browser caching: By storing some data on a user’s device, your site will load faster the next time they visit.
  • Prioritize above-the-fold material: Load key content first, such as your logo and navigation menu, to offer users a sense of progress while the remainder of the page is loading.

Improving the performance of your Shopify store will help your customers have a better user experience.

Even a millisecond improvement in site speed can increase conversions.

Deloitte discovered that a 0.1-second boost in site speed increased retail conversions by 8.4%. These customers spent over 10% more in a single fast-loading session. 

Mobile Page Loading Speed

5: Clear call to Action

When building a website, the Call-to-Action (CTA) button has the power to create or break the user experience. A polished CTA button can attract users to perform the necessary action on your website, whereas an unpolished one might cause annoyance and confusion.

While most Shopify themes already have call-to-action buttons, make sure to place them at strategic points in your customer’s journey.

Calls to action vary in the action they aim to persuade customers to take. Calls to action are typically classified into three types:

Related: 7 Powerful Call to Actions to Capture Leads on Your Website

Buy now.

A Buy Now call to action prompts customers to make a purchase. Because of this, it is the most aggressive of the CTA types.

call to action prompts

Shop Now. 

CTA encourages visitors to browse your product line. This form of CTA is effective when communicating with people in your target demographic who may be unfamiliar with your brand.

CTA

Learn more.

According to marketing theory, customers must interact with an online brand around seven times before feeling comfortable completing a purchase.

CTA

Source

Consider the following when optimizing your call-to-action button for mobile websites:

  • Keep it prominent and simple to find.
  • Check that it’s large enough for users to tap with their fingertips.
  • Use contrasting colors to make it stand out.
  • Keep the wording concise and actionable (e.g., “buy now” or “sign up”).
  • Experiment with several options to determine which button locations and designs perform best for your target audience.

6: Add sticky add to cart

The Add to Cart button on e-commerce websites should be visible, easy to discover, and sticky on every product page. It allows shoppers to easily add things to their carts without scrolling back to the top.

A sticky add-to-cart button in Shopify is useful in the following ways:

  • Simplifies the customer’s buying journey.
  • Encourages customers to add products to their cart.
  • Reduces friction and thus increases the conversion rate.
  • It could be an excellent solution if your product page is somewhat long.

How to Make a Sticky Add to Cart Button in Shopify.

Method 1: Create Sticky “Add-to-Cart” in Shopify Using an Application

  • Use third-party software to add a sticky add-to-cart button to your Shopify site.
  • There are various apps available in the Shopify app store for this purpose.
  • Choose the best software based on features, cost, reviews, and support system.

Method 2: Create Sticky “Add-to-Cart” in Shopify Manually

You may also manually enter the Shopify code for the sticky add-to-cart button. Basic coding and technical knowledge are required.

To manually install the Sticky install-to-cart button in Shopify, follow these steps:

Go to Shopify’s admin panel and select Sales Channels > Online Store > Themes.

On the Shopify theme page, click the right side three-dots {•••} and ‘Edit Code.’

Add-to-Cart

It will bring up the Shopify theme editor.

In the Snippets directory, select ‘Add a new snippet‘ and create a new liquid file called‘ shopify-add-to-cart-sticky’.

Now, put the Shopify code for the sticky add-to-cart button:

Then click “Save.”

Open the theme.liquid file and place the created code before the closing </body> element.

Finally, click “Save.”

click "Save."

 Source

That is all! Your Shopify store now has a Sticky Add to Cart button.

Have a final look!

7: Optimize font for mobile users

Despite the restricted space provided or displayed by mobile devices, providing critical information about your products or services is still necessary.

When optimizing your Shopify store for mobile, consider using larger text sizes. It might be 14 to 16 pixels so that your clients can easily read the product description and other information.

Increasing the font size may require modifying the layout of your mobile site. For example, if you have a lower font size and many columns on a mobile screen, increasing the font size may result in only a few characters per line and column.

It was not the best experience.

So, new typefaces, like script-style fonts, should not be used on mobile devices as they can be hard to read. Try bolding different lines of text while staying consistent with the font style.

Rather than using different colors, use black for the text. This allows users to see when the background is a different hue or if there are reflections, such as sun glare, when using their device outside.

mobile users

Source

8: Fix layout shifts

If your website uses JavaScript or has a poor site structure, it can cause layout changes that detract from the user experience.

Ideally, your CLS score should be less than 0.1. You have room to improve if your CLS score is between 0.1 and 0.25. Anything above 0.25 is terrible and requires quick intervention.

Fix layout shifts

Source

Fortunately, there are various approaches to resolving CLS difficulties in Shopify and increasing the visual stability of your website.

Here are four techniques to avoid major layout shifts:

  1. Specify the picture and video dimensions

It is essential to correctly identify pictures and videos because the default aspect ratio is set by contemporary web browsers such as Chrome and Firefox based on the file size. This will help you avoid making major layout changes.

You can customize the proportions of images and videos by adding height and width properties to the page’s backend. These properties tell the web browser how much space is required for each image and video on the page based on the user’s screen size.

2: Create a separate section for advertisements.

Allotting specialized space for advertisements is vital for websites that display a variety of ads. This ensures that the ad is limited to particular pixels, allowing you to avoid significant layout changes.

For example, an ad may not appear as soon as the user enters the web page due to a lack of ad inventory. The entire layout will transform dramatically as soon as the ad is downloaded. The freshly loaded ad will push down the previously downloaded content, perhaps leading to a bad user experience on the web page.

3: Optimize custom typefaces

Unoptimized bespoke fonts are a significant contributor to huge layout alterations. Downloaded custom fonts can cause FOIT and FOUT, resulting in significant layout adjustments on your website. Shoptimizer contains a setting called Typography 2.0, which adds a new font area to the Customizer and disables CLS.

4: Optimize dynamic content

If space is not prepared for dynamic content like advertisements, pop-ups, banners, forms, or GDPR notices, it might cause significant layout alterations. Using placeholders with specified heights and width ensures that any content injected dynamically on top of existing content does not cause the page layout to move unexpectedly.

9: User-friendly Checkout Page

Implementing a Shopify checkout page may appear to be a straightforward operation, but is it? However, knowing the weight of losing a customer in terms of conversions should make you think about conversion rate optimization on the checkout page.

More than 17% of US shoppers abandon their carts because the checkout process is too difficult or time-consuming. In other words, a simpler checkout procedure results in fewer cart abandonments, while an optimized Shopify payment flow might inspire customers to spend more, raising the average order value.

A few things to bear in mind while creating a flawless mobile checkout:

Integrate with other payment methods, not just ShopPay and PayPal.

Keep the design basic and make the buttons clear using strong, contrasting colors.

Only request the information that you need. This not only respects your customer’s privacy, but it also allows them to complete their purchase more swiftly.

Make sure the checkout button is easily accessible on your website.

TenTree

Tentree is a sustainable apparel brand that strongly emphasizes planting trees and being environmentally conscious.

One noteworthy aspect of their checkout process is their clear message about offsetting one’s carbon footprint.

The brand communicates its message, avoiding needless sweetness or extravagance.

TenTree

Source

Final Thoughts 

Handheld devices are altering what customers expect from internet shopping. Therefore, optimizing your Shopify store for mobile devices is critical for enhancing your customers’ shopping experience and generating revenue.

So, using the recommendations listed above can help you better optimize your Shopify theme for mobile.

If mobile accessibility and optimization are not already part of your workflow, this post will ideally make them part of your daily improvements and continuing assessment.

FAQ

1: How do I make my Shopify store mobile-friendly?

The simplest approach is to use optimized Shopify themes to make your website mobile-friendly. Following that, you can design an easily accessible navigation bar and CTA buttons, ensure correct picture presentation on mobile devices, increase font size, and include simple-to-fill-in forms. If it is still not optimized, you can use the nine steps outlined in the article to optimize your Shopify store. In addition, for sophisticated mobile optimization, it is always advisable to obtain professional help.

2: Is Shopify mobile responsive?

On a basic level, Shopify is a mobile-friendly eCommerce platform that allows mobile consumers to visit your Shopify store. However, the Shopify theme you select has a major influence on how mobile-friendly your eCommerce store is. If Shopify merchants employ responsive themes, store owners may have to take fewer measures to optimize their websites.

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