Category: Shopify Tutorial

Shopify Tutorial

Need a Catchy Business Name? Find Ideas With These Tips and Free Name Generators

May 5, 2021 , by 露露

This article is from Shopify, and was republished and shared through Elksourcing with the permission of Shopify.

Original link：https://www.shopify.com/blog/4660242-what-should-i-name-my-online-store

Choosing the best brand name can have a major impact on your small business.

A snappy, memorable brand name gives you an immediate advantage when starting an ecommerce business. It makes it easy for potential customers to remember both you and your product and can set you up for long-term success.

Odds are you’ve got a lot on your plate right now. Between determining your target audience, what products you’ll sell, and how much startup funding you need, things can easily add up. 

So if you’re having trouble coming up with the perfect business name, it’s normal. This guide will walk you through how to brainstorm your business name, with name generators and examples to help you find the best one for your business. 

Find your business name

  • How to choose the perfect business name
  • Free business name generators to help find company name ideas
  • Tips for choosing a catchy brand name
  • A list of good business names for inspiration
  • What’s in a brand name? 
  • Business name ideas FAQ

How to choose the perfect business name

Business name generator tools are great to use as a starting point if you don’t have any ideas or if you’ve hit a creative block. Remember, these aren’t the only places to find ideas—there are other ways to get inspiration in your everyday life. 

Before we begin, here are some brainstorming tips to find your business name: 

  • Research what’s already out there. Not only will this help you understand what’s not available, but you can also list the business names that you like to see if that sparks any of your own ideas. Check out your competition and browse marketplaces like Exchange. 
  • Think outside the box. One of the most important rules in brainstorming is that there are no bad ideas. It’s OK to come up with some wacky names, because you never know what feasible ideas may come out of them. If you start big, you’ll have more to work with when you narrow your focus later.
  • Ask for help. Brainstorming is a creative process that can be done both independently and with other people. Maybe you already have a team of employees you can tap into for your next venture, or you can ask friends and family to donate their time and ideas in a fun brainstorming session. 
  • Organize and review your ideas. Once you’ve come up with a list of ideas, you’ll need to go back and sort through them to find the top contenders. Consider organizing your list using word banks or categorizing them based on theme. This could also help spark some fresh ideas post-brainstorm. 
  • Test your name. Tap into a focus group that’s representative of your target market, ask friends and family (ideally ones who didn’t help you brainstorm), and survey local shoppers to see which name ideas resonate the most.

Free business name generators to help find company name ideas

Coming up with catchy, meaningful ideas can be challenging, and it often feels like all the good names are already taken.

To help you find that perfect moniker, we’ve put together this list of business name generator tools to make sure your brand gets off on the right foot, plus five brainstorming strategies to get your creative juices flowing.

  • Shopify
  • Oberlo
  • Freshbooks
  • Anadea
  • Name Mesh
  • Hipster Business Names
  • Getsocio
  • Businessnamegenerator.com
  • Namesmith
  • Namelix

1. Shopify

Shopify’s business name generator helps you come up with potential business names in 10 seconds or less. Simply enter a keyword, click “Generate names, then browse thousands of auto-generated name ideas for your company domain. You can find all types of brand names that range from clever to modern, pragmatic to classic to help you build a brand. Or browse names based on industries such as clothing, fashion, jewelry, crafts, and flowers.

It’s the perfect tool if you’re looking for a little bit of creative inspiration. Plus, if you find a unique business name you like, you can jump from naming your brand to securing a domain in just a few clicks. New business owners can register a domain name and start an online store in minutes, so they can start selling online faster. 

2. Oberlo

Oberlo’s business name generator is a free resource you can use to find potential names for your business. Enter a word you want to include in your business name and the tool will give you hundreds of creative options to explore. You can browse and choose one you like, then register its .com domain. The business name generator can check for domain availability to make it easier to start your new company. 

3. Freshbooks

Freshbooks’ business name generator is a fun and interactive way to find a new company name. Once you click “Let’s Get Started,” the tool then asks you to select your industry: creatives and marketing, legal services and business consulting, trades and home services, or information technology. You’re then prompted to include any keywords you want to include in your business name. 

The tool will give you a batch of names according to your input. If you’re not a fan of any of them, you can click “Show me more names” to see more options, or “Go back and change keyword.” 

4. Anadea

Anadea’s business name maker is a free tool that combines a topic or keyword with other words and modifiers to generate a list of business name suggestions. Start by thinking of a catchy word that describes your business, then enter it into the name generator field. Click “Generate names” and the tool will provide you with 24 unique business name ideas. 

You can scroll through pages of relevant brand names in its database or change your keyword to discover other ideas. Once you find a good one, you can get a quote for registering the domain and building your website. 

5. Name Mesh

Name Mesh gives you ideas for choosing a domain name depending on the specific keywords you input. It recommends relevant domains based on your choices, then divides them into name suggestions based on categories like common, new, short, similar, fun, extra, and SEO. You can browse thousands of different suggestions to inspire your business name and register a domain if you find the perfect one. 

6. Hipster Business Name

Hipster Business Name is one of the more creative business name generators on the list, offering random cool name ideas that are fun, catchy, and clever—think as if you were starting a business in Brooklyn. To see more names, simply click “Refresh.” If you’re looking for a unique name, this is the best business name generator for you. 

7. Getsocio

Getsocio’s free business name generator lets you type in a keyword you want in your company name, then gives you thousands of intriguing suggestions with domain availability. You can click through tons of name ideas to get inspiration or choose one to register. 

The only drawback is that you’ll receive a .getsocio.com domain rather than the standard .com. 

8. Businessnamegenerator.com

If you’re looking for a bunch of different name generators, you’ll want to check out Businessnamegenerator.com. You can use the standard generator once you land on the page, or scroll down to find trending and popular generators to play around with. Some examples include a startup name generator, creative business generator, podcast name generator, and photography company name generator. 

Choose the generator you want to use, then type in your keywords and it’ll provide you with catchy brand names to pick from. If you find a name you like, you can register it with GoDaddy and start using it immediately. 

9. Namesmith

Namesmith’s creative business name generator lets you add up to five keywords you’d like in your business name. After you click ”Search,” the algorithm will provide business names (and domains) with exact keywords, blends, rhymes, prefixes/suffixes, and modifications. The tool constructs a blend of words based on your keywords, messes with them in cool ways, and creates unique business names. 

If you’re completely stuck, you can explore random names by clicking “Just Generate Some Random Names Please!”

10. Namelix

Namelix uses artificial intelligence to provide you with catchy names and logo design ideas. Enter a keyword or multiple keywords and Namelix will use similar words to generate a list of ideas. It’ll also tell you if there is an available domain for sale. 

In the example above, I chose to search for catchy business name ideas related to “jewelry,” “gems,” “stones,” and “diamonds.” If you were to start a jewelry company, this would be a great starting point to choose a name and purchase a done-for-you logo. 

Tips for choosing a catchy brand name

Having a great business name is crucial to your success as an online entrepreneur. As Marty Neumeier writes in The Brand Gap, “The right name can be a brand’s most valuable asset, driving differentiation and speeding acceptance. The wrong name can cost millions…in workarounds and lost income over the lifetime of the brand.”

It’s incredibly important to find the right name when setting up your online store to help it stand out from the crowd—both from a branding perspective and from a search engine perspective. Here are a few pointers on how to find a memorable name.

1. Keep it short and simple

Having a short, snappy name is great for several reasons: it’s memorable, it’s easy to pronounce, and it effortlessly fits in the header of your online store’s homepage. 

Finding a good name can be challenging, however. Brands are launched every day, and names that are appealing to you will undoubtedly appeal to someone else, too. Fortunately, it’s a big world and there’s plenty of room for creative, compelling brand names.

Here are a few strategies you can try to get your gears turning:

  • Try different combinations of short words. Two short words that rhyme or that are alliterative (e.g., “Snack Shack”) can be more memorable.
  • Make up a word or tweak an existing one. Tech brands like Google, eBay, and Skype have instantly recognizable names, even though they aren’t real words.
  • Use a word with personal meaning. It might be a nickname you have for your significant other, your pet’s name (a smart idea if your store relates to furry friends), or even your own name. Using a personal name makes your store easier to identify with—though note that stores built on personal brands can be more difficult to sell.

2. Be different

Conduct market research to discover which names are taken by your direct competitors and try to come up with something completely different.

The challenge here is to come up with a name that reflects your niche and the type of products you’re selling without your business name mirroring your competitors. By definition, if you want to be different you have to “zig” when others “zag.”

For instance, if you’re selling electronics and technology products, you might have competitors who use words like “electronics,” “technology,” and “future” in their names. Avoid using similar words. Instead, think differently and stand out.

3. Consider your online presence

Once you have a list of options for your store name, find out if your chosen domain—preferably a .com—is available to be registered. This might be a bit difficult, given that .com is the most popular top-level domain (TLD) and has been for a long time.

Having a custom domain name for your store is mission critical, though you shouldn’t let your search for the mythical “perfect” domain name cause you to procrastinate—everything is open to change, including your domain name. However, there is value in picking a solid domain name that properly represents your brand from the start, so it’s a decision that warrants some thought.

You might also consider selling on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, or another third-party marketplace in addition to your own online store. Even if that’s not in the plan, it’s a good idea to check your business name idea on popular ecommerce sites to make sure the name is available to you and so customers don’t confuse you with another existing business.

4. Get creative with your domain name

If the .com for your chosen name isn’t available, don’t fret—you still have the option of using a different top-level domain. The reason .com is the gold standard is that everyone recognizes it, but that doesn’t rule out other TLDs, which are becoming more commonplace as great .com options continue to dwindle. 

When it first launched, Shopify store Tattly decided to go with a .ly domain: tatt.ly. More recently, it was able to purchase tattly.com, which is where its site currently lives.

While some search engine experts believe Google isn’t as friendly to lesser-known domains, you should still be able to rank just as high as a .com if you have a high-quality site with a good user experience. Plus, going with a snazzy domain is far more unique. Give our domain name generator a spin if you’re looking for inspiration.

Modifiers to consider:

  • [YourBrand][Main Product].com (e.g., helmboots.com)
  • Shop[YourBrand].com (e.g., shopsandytoesshop.com
  • Get[YourProduct].com (e.g., getflow.com)
  • [YourBrand]co.com (e.g., shopmeekco.com)
  • [YourBrand][Industry].com (e.g., lifeinspirithome.com)
  • [Verb][YourBrand].com (e.g., wearpepper.com)
  • [My/Your][YourBrand].com (e.g., mybillie.com)

TLDs to consider:

  • .store
  • .shop
  • Based on the product you sell (.shoes, .art)
  • Continuation of your brand name (e.g., muvo.health for “Muvo Health Supplements,” or fuego.clothing for “Fuego Clothing Co.”)

5. Be original

Make sure you’re legally allowed to use the business name you’ve come up with. For store owners in the US, start by checking the United States Patent and Trademark Office. It has a free database that’s a pain in the butt to search, but it’s well worth the effort.

Also note, the US doesn’t have a centralized national register, so trademarks can be made in another country or just in a single state. In Canada, you can search through the Canadian Intellectual Property Office website, which is also pretty confusing. 

Once you’ve determined your name is available, go to Google or Bing and see if the names on your list show up. Could you potentially make it to the top of the first page? If you choose a generic name, you’ll have a tough time ranking very well.

It’s also important to check Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites you’ll want to use for name availability.

6. Find new inspiration

If you’re short on small-business name ideas, you might want to give yourself themes to think about. Maybe you look for a business name that has nostalgia or speaks to a trend. Other languages can provide plenty of ideas, too. 

Inspiration can strike anywhere. Listen to conversations around you, survey your surroundings, and even consider your usual expressions and mannerisms.

A list of good business names for inspiration

The best ecommerce sites all have one thing in common: a cool business name. Browse the following list of business names to get inspiration for yours.  

  • Death Wish Coffee
  • Super Ink Clothing
  • Sock Market
  • Cotopaxi
  • Coffee Joulies
  • Fuego Box
  • Conquest Maps
  • Star Cadet
  • Storq
  • United By Blue

1. Death Wish Coffee

A name like Death Wish Coffee can only mean one thing: this is some of the strongest coffee you can buy. The name sets the tone for the brand experience, as does the copy on its website and other marketing channels, encouraging customers to try it and find out if it lives up to its promise.

2. Super Ink Clothing

Super Ink Clothing sells printed clothing and accessories to a very specific demographic. “Our paradise lifestyle was made for creative individuals who constantly live in a state of wanderlust!” its About page states. 

To create its compound name, the brand combined the word “super,” which is associated with positivity and quality, and “ink,” which brings in the idea of the ink printed on the clothing. If you’re stuck between two ideas or words for your store name, you might not have to choose one over the other. 

3. Sock Market 

Sock Market has taken a more literal approach to its brand name. The online store sells socks for people of all ages, from babies to adults. Built on the philosophy of bringing high fashion to the sock industry, the name for the online store indicates that it is “the” place to go for all your sock needs. 

4. Cotopaxi 

There are two meanings for the word “Cotopaxi.” One is a sacred and active volcano in the Andes Mountains in Ecuador. The other is an online store that sells outdoor gear. Rather than inventing a word or coming up with a name from scratch, Cotopaxi borrowed the name from a famous landmark that’s relevant and interesting to its customer base. It even shares the story behind the name on its site.

5. Coffee Joulies 

Coffee Joulies are stainless steel thermodynamic coffee beans that help regulate your cup of coffee to the perfect temperature. So where did the word “joulies” come from? “Joule is the SI unit of energy; Joule…Joulie…Joulies!” the founders explained in a 2011 article. They found a word that embodied the science they put into the product and tweaked it to make it their own—and make it more memorable to customers.

6. Fuego Box 

The subscription box industry continues to thrive, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, with 53% of subscription box companies claiming they didn’t see a significant drop in acquisition rates in 2020.

Many of the most popular brands in this category have “box” in their name: BarkBox, Birchbox, and NatureBox, to name a few. Fuego Box plays on the familiarity of the word “box” and a commonly used Spanish-language word for fire, “fuego.”

7. Conquest Maps 

Conquest Maps sells beautiful and unique maps, its core product being a pin board map popular among people who love to travel. Keeping the name of the product (maps) in the store name, it added a descriptor in front to convey brand identity and the journey the product represents. A conquest is a trip, and customers are reliving their trips through Conquest Maps products.

8. Star Cadet 

Star Cadet is the result of a series of media, retail, and ecommerce business ventures dating back to 2010. Star Cadet’s brand story is quite long and eventful, with a history of several failed and successful businesses along the way. Formerly called Olan Rogers Supply, derived from the founders’ names, the online brand changed its name to Star Cadet, which also works for the business’ future production aspirations. 

9. Storq 

Storq sells products for pregnant women and new moms. Pronounced like “stork,” it’s a unique take on spelling the word. Storks are associated with childbirth, which makes for a fitting and memorable brand name. Plus, the letter Q lends itself to fun branding and design treatments. 

10. United By Blue

United By Blue is more than just a brand; the company has created a movement around sustainability and protecting the earth’s oceans and waterways. It sells products designed for enjoying the outdoors. Its customers are quite literally united with the brand through their passion for the ocean, rivers, lakes, and streams. It establishes a sense of community and reiterates the brand’s philosophies.

What’s in a brand name?

Finding the right business name can feel like a daunting task. But it’s absolutely crucial to put time and thought into naming your online store. That’s how customers will come to know, recognize, and talk about you—and if the name’s too difficult to remember, you’re missing out on loads of word-of-mouth marketing that doesn’t cost you a single penny.

Illustration by Eugenia Mello

FAQ: Finding business name ideas

How do I name my small business?

  • Consider what you want to convey to customers.
  • Research what brand names are available.
  • Brainstorm with friends or family to get company name suggestions.
  • Focus on the uniqueness of your brand.
  • Keep your business name short and simple.
  • Organize and review your business name ideas. 
  • Test your business name ideas.

What’s a catchy name?

A catchy name is designed to be memorable for your target audience. It doesn’t matter how many other brand names they see, they’ll remember yours because it’s unforgettable. Often these names become everyday terms, such as Band-Aid or Popsicle

How do I come up with a catchy business name?

  • Mash up different words.
  • Create acronyms.
  • Brainstorm name ideas from everyday things, like an apple or a dog.
  • Draw inspiration from history, literature, or mythology.
  • Include foreign words.
  • Use your name.
  • Try a business name generator.
  • Be original.

Where can I find out if a business name is taken?

You can check your state’s business filing website name check tool to search business names and see if they are taken by another business or not. If a name is taken, you can always search for business names for sale on sites such as SquadHelp.

Shopify Tutorial

The Best Free Stock Photo Websites For Finding Creative Images in 2021

May 5, 2021 , by 露露

This article is from Shopify, and was republished and shared through Elksourcing with the permission of Shopify.

Original link：https://www.shopify.com/blog/17156388-22-awesome-websites-with-stunning-free-stock-images

I know your pain.

You’re looking for the right images for your online store, website, or social media feed. You don’t have time for product photography, so you’ve searched far and wide for free images to use but keep running into cheesy stock photos of people high-fiving in boardrooms or laughing into their salads.

The good news: there’s a huge variety of excellent free and paid stock photography websites for commercial use available online. You just have to know where to look.

We’ve compiled an exhaustive (and freshly updated) list of stock photo resources you can use to find free images to build your brand. Whether you need first-rate stock images for commercial use or a blog post hero, you’ll find what you’re looking for right here.

Find your stock photos

  • Free image license types
  • 23 best free stock photo sites for commercial use
  • Using free images for your website
  • Free stock photos FAQ

Free image license types

Before we get into our list of top stock photo sites, let’s look at the different terms and licenses that stock photography websites use:

  • Royalty free means you can use the asset without paying royalties or licensing fees.
  • A Creative Commons license gives you the right to share, use, and build upon a copyrighted image.
  • Attribution refers to giving appropriate credit to a creator’s work. It’s either required or not required when downloading a stock photo.
  • Commercial use describes any activity in which you use assets for financial gain. Stock image sites may permit licensed photos for commercial purposes (like ads or editorial) or may not.
  • Membership means you must register an account with the website to use its images. Some require a membership fee, while others are free.

 It’s always best to double check the licensing terms for the stock photo resources listed below. We did our research when putting this list together, but licensing is subject to change and may differ depending on which stock photographers or stock libraries you purchase from. Some may require approval for commercial use, while others may be totally free to download and use.

23 best free stock photo sites for commercial use

  • Burst by Shopify
  • Pixabay
  • Unsplash
  • Pexels
  • Shutterstock
  • Getty Images
  • Canva
  • iStock
  • Freepik
  • Picjumbo
  • Life of Pix
  • Depositphoto
  • ISO Republic
  • FreeImages
  • Gratisography
  • New Old Stock
  • Kaboompics
  • Freerange
  • Adobe Stock
  • StockSnap.io
  • Stockvault
  • Foodiesfeed
  • FOCA stock

Burst by Shopify

Burst is a free stock photo site powered by Shopify. Our image library includes thousands of high-resolution images taken by a global community of photographers. New high-definition photos are added every week. These public domain images are free to use for commercial or personal use.

The site has a search feature where you can find images by keyword or popular category. Another neat feature of Burst is its “business ideas” section. Here you can find free stock photos to download and business tips broken down by niche, including women’s fashion, art supplies, socks, and more.

Pixabay

Pixabay is a free stock website with over 2.2 million stock images, videos, and music clips available for download by the Pixabay community. It offers royalty-free photos from contributors, which anyone can manipulate and use without permission or any attribution to the artist.

Stock images on Pixabay have been described as “mediocre for the most part” and cover a wide range of topics. All photos are released under the Pixabay license, which is similar to the Creative Commons CC0, but slightly more restrictive.

Unsplash

Unsplash is home to over 2.5 million free beautiful stock photos shot by a global community of photographers. All images are free for whatever use you wish, and Unsplash adds new images to download everyday. When you create a free account with this stock photography site you can collect photos and access them from your iPhone, iPad, or computer.

Pexels

Pexels is a free stock image and video library licensed under the Pexels license, which is similar to the CC0 license. You can download, copy, distribute, and modify images licensed by Pexels. This stock image site has hundreds of thousands of images hand-picked from photos uploaded by the Pexels community. All photos are tagged, searchable, and can easily be found on the site’s discovery pages.

Shutterstock

Shutterstock is a leading provider of licensed stock images, vectors, illustrations, and music for businesses and consumers around the world. It has a growing community of over one million creators and adds hundreds of thousands of creative assets every day.

To date, over one billion images, video clips, and music tracks have been downloaded on Shutterstock. It has a library of over 300 million free stock images, and customers in 150+ countries.

Getty Images

Getty Images supplies stock images, editorial photography, video, and music from a library of over 200 million assets. Getty Images gears more toward corporations and creative professionals in advertising and media.

Most images are not free—you’ll have to pay for a license to use them. However, you can use some images for free with Getty’s Embed feature, which is only for non-commercial use. The kicker? The free images have the Getty Images watermark at the bottom and you can’t get rid of it.

Canva

The acclaimed graphic design tool Canva also offers free stock images on its site. The Canva library is home to millions of paid and free stock photos to download or use in the platform’s design editor. You can switch between images and colors without navigating between tabs.

iStock

iStock by Getty Images is another leading stock photography website. It offers millions of popular photos, illustrations, clip art, videos, and audio clips. It’s also known for paying contributors well for their contributions. While you’ll have to pay a licensing fee for most assets, iStock does offer weekly free stock photos to download.

Freepik

Freepik is a great free stock image site for creators seeking professional Photoshop (PSD) templates and beautiful stock images. The site has over four million assets, from vectors to illustrations, also available for download. Attribution is required to use Freepik’s stock for commercial or personal use.

Picjumbo

Born in 2013, picjumbo is a free stock photo website created in 2013 by designer and photographer Viktor Hanacek. It started because all other photo sites rejected his photos for “lack of quality.”

Today, picjumbo offers thousands of high-resolution images, plus social media elements and other design freebies. Images are easy to find and displayed as collections, so you can see the same image from different views and find the best free images for your project.

Life of Pix

Built by LEEROY Creative Agency, Life of Pix offers true-to-life high-resolution stock images for download. It has thousands of stock photos, including everything from food and people to architecture and textures. The site adds 10 new photos weekly from a handpicked Photographer of the Week. All copyright-free images are available for commercial use, but some restrictions apply for distributors.

Depositphoto

Depositphoto is a global marketplace for stock images, with over 202 million assets available for download. You can browse through thematic collections of free stock photography and media trusted by corporations including TripAdvisor, Forbes, and Subaru. Many photos are available for purchase, but the site offers over 69,000 high-quality images you can download for free.

ISO Republic

ISO Republic is an independent website that curates high-resolution, Creative Commons CC0 photos and videos. It has an ever-expanding library with over 6,000 creative photos, all free for personal and commercial use, no attribution required.

FreeImages

FreeImages provides over 380,000 royalty-free stock photos ready to share. You can license them to use for social media, ads, printed materials, websites, or any other project you’re working on. You can find photos for concepts like fashion, fitness, business, family, travel, and more, all free to download.

Gratisography

Gratisography is a free stock image website different from any other on this list, created by photographer Ryan McGuire. It offers humorous and whimsical images (think: bigfoot in the forest with a mask on) you can use entirely for free, without any copyright restrictions. If you want to express your brand and make an impact on your viewers, photos from Gratisography are the way to go.

New Old Stock

Looking for free vintage photos for your project? Look no further than New Old Stock. While the stock photography site doesn’t actively add new images anymore, you can still browse and download old photos from Flickr Commons–listed institutions and public archives. You’ll find photos taken of everything from gold mining in New England to NASA in the ’70s and so much more.

Kaboompics

Kaboompics is another popular free stock image site, with over 20,000 photos. It’s owned by one photographer/entrepreneur and has a stock photo license that covers both personal and commercial purposes without attribution (although it’s appreciated). The site search helps you find photos in over 1,500 collections, with advanced sorting options to find the best match. Kaboompics blog is also full of expert advice on marketing and design.

Freerange

Freerange is a standard free stock image site with a big library of images ready to download. Photos are shot both in house and submitted by contributors. The collections span topics like backgrounds and textures, animals and insects, technology, and vintage photos. New photos are added daily.

Adobe Stock

Adobe Stock is known for its premium stock photos and high price tag. But did you know it also offers a selection of free pics and videos, too? Browse curated photo collections of trending themes like Springtime and Nature and Landscapes. Or check out its collection of free illustrations, templates, and 3D assets to use in your next personal or commercial project.

StockSnap.io

StockSnap.io is a free stock image site created by the same team behind graphic design tool Snappa. It offers hundreds of high-resolution photos, with more added every week. The search function is user friendly and lets you sort by popularity, views, download, favorites, and more. The library is built by user submissions and reflects a trendy, modern style you can use for your projects, free from any copyright restrictions.

Stockvault

Stockvault showcases a big collection of over 138,000 photos on varied topics. It crowdsources photos from creators around the world for you to download and use for free. The overall quality of photos are excellent. The only drawback is that Stockvault has three different licenses, so make sure to check that you can use a specific photo for your intended purposes.

Foodiesfeed

Foodiesfeed is the best free food photography stock photo site on the web. Search through more than 1,700 photos, with intuitive search functionality and tags that are incredibly easy to use. Foodiesfeed is perfect for any food-related website looking for trendy, high-quality photos, free for commercial use.

FOCA stock

Formerly known as MMT, FOCA stock offers a full archive of free for commercial use stock photos, with new photos added every single week. It has a big focus on nature stock photography and macro stock photography. The site is also incredibly easy to navigate and lets you sort by category, tags, color, and orientation, so you can find what you’re looking for.

Using free images for your website

Now that you’ve taken a look at the best places online to get free high-quality images, it’s time to build the best ecommerce website for your business. With all of these stunning stock photos at your fingertips, your creative juices are no doubt flowing.

So, whether you’re using the images for a blog post, a website, your store, a Facebook ad, a presentation, or whatever else life throws at you, you’re all set.

Illustration by Till Lauer

Free stock photos FAQ

Is Burst free?

Burst is a free stock photo site powered by Shopify. All photos are free for commercial use, with no attribution required.

Where can I get stock photos for free?

  • Burst by Shopify
  • Pixabay
  • Unsplash
  • Pexels
  • Shutterstock
  • Getty Images
  • Canva
  • iStock
  • Freepik
  • Picjumbo

Is it illegal to use stock photos?

Stock photos are not illegal to use if you have legally licensed the image. The photographer of a stock image must make their work available for licensing, then you can obtain it by paying to use it or through a Creative Commons license.

What can I use instead of stock photos?

There are two options for getting creative images instead of using stock photos. You can take your own photos or hire a photographer to take photos for your business or project.

Shopify Tutorial

Homepage Design 101: What to Include on the Front Page of Your Website

May 5, 2021 , by 露露

This article is from Shopify, and was republished and shared through Elksourcing with the permission of Shopify.
Original linkh：ttps://www.shopify.com/blog/homepage-design

Your homepage serves as both an introduction to your brand and a set of coded instructions meant to help both new and existing customers navigate your business to find what they need.

Much like a landing page, every detail should build toward making a strong first impression and encouraging an intended action, whether the goal of your homepage is to sell your products or capture email subscribers.

There’s no one way to design a homepage. However, here are some tips to keep in mind as you plan your homepage from top to bottom, whether you’re building your first store, or revisiting this crucial part of your website.

Questions to ask when designing your homepage

A homepage that works perfectly for one business could fall flat for another.

If you’re looking at design options and are unsure of which direction to go in, here are a few questions to help guide your decision:

  • How easy was it for them to get to your homepage and do you have a branded domain? We have free tools to help with finding a domain name.
  • What do you want the visitor to do? (e.g. make a purchase, join your email list, etc.)
  • How simple are you making it for them to do this?
  • How many steps are there to complete your goal?
  • How much information do they need to proceed to the next step?
  • Are there any steps you can eliminate?

Visitors sometimes land on homepages knowing what they want, and other times they don’t. You have to design your homepage with both in mind while ensuring that your decisions align with your primary goals.

A good homepage should accommodate visitors looking for a specific outcome, while directing the attention of the ones who aren’t.

What outcomes should your homepage design support?

On average, visitors will spend 10-20 seconds on your homepage. What this means from a design perspective is that you need to make the navigational flow clear so visitors can quickly choose the best path for themselves (and for your business).

Adding to this urgency is a psychological phenomenon called “decision avoidance,” which is the tendency of humans to avert a decision that takes too long to make.

On a homepage, decision avoidance means “bouncing” by exiting the page or hitting the back button. To prevent this, the first task of your homepage should be to convince potential customers to stick around.

To do that, you need to understand the role of your website’s most valuable real estate.

1. “Above-the-fold” content that inspires action

When web designers talk about an area of the homepage as “above the fold,” they’re referring to what visitors see before they decide to scroll.

When considering what lies above the fold and how that accompanies the rest of your homepage, focus on the actions you want the visitor to take when they first land on your site, the information they need first, and how you can help facilitate their decision.

Take Morning Recovery’s homepage, for example. Morning Recovery sells a hangover remedy as their sole product. Since the goal is to direct potential customers to purchase their flagship product, brightly-colored and product-focused images adorn the section above-the-fold with a clear call to action that leads visitors to make a purchase.

On this homepage, there are two quick decisions that a user can make:

  • Proceed to make a purchase
  • Or scroll down for more information below the fold—reviews, a video, and information about the product’s ingredients. 

Most of the best ecommerce website designs use headers that are a combination of an attention-grabbing headline, persuasive subtitle, and captivating visual above the fold to keep new visitors on-site and familiarize them with the brand.

However, there are many other ways you can capture a customer’s interest from the very beginning, such as featuring a promotional banner above your navigation to advertise a special offer or free shipping.

2. Clear navigation

The navigational strength of a web page rests on its simplicity. This may seem contradictory when you want to accommodate different types of visitors, but it makes sense when you consider how quickly people move from page to page on the internet.

Header navigation should be as straightforward as possible, prioritizing the paths that matter most to most visitors. Andy Crestodina, strategic director of Orbit Media Studios, recommends no more than seven navigation links on your homepage.

Humans use an organizational memorization method called “chunking” wherein information is broken down into smaller mental units called “chunks”.

The fewer “chunks” there are, the easier memory retention becomes. In an influential paper published in 1956, psychology professor George Miller concluded that our short-term memory is generally only able to hold seven items at a time.

Sites with too many navigation options can feel cluttered and overwhelming, increasing the likeliness that visitors will drop off or take the wrong path. A good practice is to prioritize your navigation links from left to right with the most important pages at the left.

If you have a lot of products and collections, focus on your main top-level collections in your homepage navigation and use a “mega menu” or a drop-down menu to create sub-navigation.

Sub-navigation is an excellent way to organize your products and pages for easy exploration without overwhelming customers with too many options from the get-go.

UNCONDITIONAL’s homepage, for example, balances minimal navigation and extensive inventory with a well-organized dropdown menu.

Some websites also have links to their about us page, contact us page, FAQ page, or other pages in their header navigation because they support their primary goals.

But if you find that visitors to these pages aren’t converting according to your goals, it’s likely these links are taking them off the path to conversion. If this is the case, it’s best to add these links to the footer instead.

3. Eye-catching imagery

Decision avoidance applies not only to your navigation but all other elements on your homepage. Appreciating the limits of user attention will help you emphasize what matters most when designing your homepage.

Whether you’re promoting a product or collection or trying to capture leads, the purpose of your visuals is to draw in the user’s attention immediately as they arrive on your website.

Here are a few ways to incorporate visuals into the above-the-fold section of your homepage:

Image with text overlay

This style of above-the-fold imagery often blends together a single, powerful image, direct copy, and a call to action. It works best for merchants that want to focus on a leading offer above the fold, such as a limited time sale, a flagship product, or a seasonal collection.

Slideshows

You may choose to include a slideshow with each of the slides advertising a specific sale, group of products, or high-quality product photo.

Store owners who sell a wide selection of products across a few categories often opt for this approach when there’s a few collections or pages they want to promote to visitors.

You’ll want to order the slides based on priority, with the highest priority slide first. It’s best to limit yourself to roughly three slides since users won’t be looking at a single slide for long before moving to the next step.

Video

Certain brands stand to benefit from a homepage visual that tells their story. For some products, especially innovative or complex ones, it may be necessary to illustrate how to use the product before you can get visitors interested.

Take the homepage of Bottle Cutting Inc for example. Many visitors likely won’t know they need the product just yet, so the homepage creates excitement around it through a video demonstration—a natural first step in the conversion process.

Since images have such an immediate and significant impact, it’s important to make sure they’re high quality and truly representative of your brand.

If you’re not a photographer, you can use the image picker in the Shopify theme editor to select from our collection of free stock photos.

4. A direct call to action

Think of a call to action as an exit sign on a highway; it should be short, hard to miss, and point the right drivers down the path they need to take.

Your calls to action and what they link to should align with the next steps a customer can take toward the main goals of your homepage. That might mean linking to your latest collection or getting users to watch an explainer video to learn more.

The user should understand immediately where to click because your call to action button should stand out from the surrounding design. The longer it takes a user to find the call to action, the more likely they are to become confused or click away.

The PopSockets homepage, featured above, does an excellent job of moving the user down their ideal conversion path. Brilliant product imagery is used to catch the user’s attention, while the call to action is front and center in black and white (in contrast with the colorful background).

Nothing above the fold distracts from the main goal of the homepage: to direct the user to browse their latest product line. As you scroll down, you’ll see more CTAs to purchase other products.

5. An easy-to-access shopping cart

The shopping cart is an integral part of the homepage for most ecommerce websites.

Part of making navigation intuitive for your customers is ensuring their shopping cart is easy to find. A “sticky” shopping cart (sometimes called a “slide-out” cart, which is available in certain Shopify themes) is a cart that is present and available on the screen throughout the entire browsing experience, usually in the top-right corner.

Even better, you can display the number of items currently in the customer’s cart as well. A bold, eye-catching notification by the cart, indicating the number of items currently added, reminds customers their purchase is still in progress and encourages them to complete their checkout.

Bottom line: Make it clear to customers when items are in their cart and how to access it.

The Chubbies homepage features a red notification highlighting the number of items in the user’s cart, as well as a slide-out cart that lets users easily continue shopping or proceed to checkout.

6. A search bar (for large collections of products)

Alongside minimal navigation and a sticky cart, many online stores include a search bar to help visitors who know exactly what they are looking for—especially if they have many different products or lots of content to explore.

Morphe, for example, has an extensive collection of different makeup products. To make it easier for their customers to find what they’re looking for, Morphe has added a smart search bar that auto-completes a visitor’s search query with suggested products, collections, and pages. This creates a direct path to the page that the user is looking for from the homepage.

Generally, users who complete a search are more likely to convert. If your brand is selling a lot of products, an easy-to-find search bar offers an alternative to complex navigation that’s likely to turn customers away.

Beyond the fold: Other homepage elements to consider

Elements that you feature below the fold (i.e. after users scroll) aren’t necessarily less important—they often reinforce and expand on the information you’ve already introduced, provide other paths to the same conversion goal, and make other pages available to the customers who need them.

Here’s a short list of elements you can include as part of your homepage design or your footer, depending on how important they are to your goals.

1. Blogs, videos, and other content

Blog and video content can be great for SEO, but content above the fold has the potential to distract customers and draw them away from your products. You generally want your content to lead users to your products, not the other way around.

Consider placing links to your content below the fold or even in the footer, especially if the content isn’t a core aspect of your business, and allow users who’ve chosen to explore your site to find it.

If you want to promote your content, you could add a link in your top navigation, but it’s often best to do this on social media, through email, and third party sites so that it can drive external traffic to your own website.

BioLite Energy, for example, sells sustainable, portable cooking and lighting appliances. Their informative, homepage video content is tucked below the fold and above the footer to avoid distracting users from their core value proposition. Everything else—from their blog to their YouTube channel—is available below if visitors are looking for it.

2. Social proof: Customer reviews, endorsements, and press

Social proof is an endorsement of your brand that leverages existing trust from customers/experts to earn the trust of new visitors. This can include press mentions, reviews, social media posts, Instagram galleries, or endorsements from influencers or experts.

If you have persuasive social proof that you can leverage, your homepage may be a good place for it.

The ErgoDox homepage below provides quotes pulled from social media and shoutouts from employees at well-known companies as a testament to the quality of their product. However, this is introduced towards the bottom after establishing what their product does.

3. Low priority and add-on products

Older products and add-on products like watch straps may be worth shifting towards the bottom of your homepage. You want to lead with your flagship products or draw attention to your newest product lines, after all.

Less expensive products that compliment your main products act best as impulse buys used as an upsell at checkout, but they can also be included on the homepage below the fold to make visitors aware of them—if you’re selling a product that requires replacement parts or refills.

LIV Watches, for example, naturally focuses on watches, but advertise their premium add-on products like straps towards the bottom of their homepage.

4. Lower priority pages

Pages that you consider low priority can differ depending on your business model.

Generally, pages such as your Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, or Return Policy work best in the footer. Since links to these pages are so often kept in the footer, many visitors should intuitively look there if they need to get to these pages.

Others, like your about us page template, contact info, store locations, or order tracking pages can also be added to your footer. But if they truly help prospective customers buy from you, or help you accomplish another key goal, then you can consider prioritizing them in your top navigation or even your homepage design.

For example, a merchant selling a subscription service might be able to significantly curb their support tickets by adding a prominent FAQ link in their homepage navigation. Or, like in the case of Bellroy where their products are often purchased in-person, you can help visitors discover the nearest physical retail location via a more prominent Store Locator link.

In trying to decide if a page is low-priority, ask yourself how much you stand to benefit if you direct visitors to that page right away and whether it serves to distract them away from or draw them towards your intended outcomes.

Keeping mobile homepage design in mind

Mobile web-traffic has consistently continued to grow over the last couple of years. Since a good portion of your traffic is likely to come from mobile sources, every decision you make about the design of your homepage should take mobile users into account.

Simplifying your homepage to direct users toward a specific set of actions becomes even more important for mobile users.

If you’re a Shopify store owner, the elements of any theme in the Shopify theme store will adjust based on screen size. However, keep in mind that images that look stunning on a wide desktop screen could be cut off or cropped in unusual ways on a mobile screen. Calls to action can be harder to find or moved in a way that makes it more likely for visitors to click away.

You can easily preview your homepage design on different devices in the Shopify theme editor by using the view toggle options at the top of your preview.

Improving your homepage design over time

As you’re probably aware by now, there’s no single best way to design your homepage. Factors like user demographics, branding, number of products, marketing channels, and more can influence your user’s behavior in a medley of ways.

That’s why it’s so important to always view your homepage as a work in progress, using the traffic and sales you generate to measure the impact of your homepage and make adjustments over time.

Shopify Tutorial

The Top 10 Paid and Free Logo Makers Online in 2021

May 4, 2021 , by 露露

This article is from Shopify, and was republished and shared through Elksourcing with the permission of Shopify.
Original link:https://www.shopify.com/blog/online-logo-makers

Your logo is more than just a group of symbols, letters, and colors. It’s the most recognizable brand identifier of your business, followed only by visual style and brand colors, and can be the driving force behind the success of your business. 

In fact, 60% of consumers avoid brands that have an unattractive logo. So even if you have a great product or service, you can hinder your marketing and sales efforts without a good logo.

As a new business owner, it can be hard to cough up the money to pay for a professional logo designer. If you have little design experience, how can you possibly make a logo by yourself?

If this sounds like you, don’t sweat it. This article will walk you through the best free online logo makers, plus a few affordable options if you have a little extra room in your budget. 

Design your logo today

  • Why a professional logo is important to your brand
  • Best free logo maker apps and generators
  • Best paid logo makers online
  • Free logo design templates
  • Logo design tips
  • Design your logo today
  • Free logo maker FAQ

Why a professional logo is important to your brand

Your logo says everything about your business. If it looks good, it leaves a lasting impression on potential customers. A bad logo, on the other hand, can leave customers with a bad taste in their mouth. It can also hinder your brand across different channels—like social media, web, and print—if the colors or layout are done poorly. 

A well-designed business logo can:

  • Grab potential customers’ attention. People have short attention spans. A great logo can attract the eye and communicate your brand values quickly.
  • Make you recognizable. Logos are the foundation of your brand identity. It can differentiate you from competitors and help people remember your business across any channel. 
  • Build customer loyalty. A professional logo can build trust with people before they even interact with your brand. If they have a great experience, they’ll likely return and continue to buy from your business. 

As you can see, a small business won’t get far without a good logo. It can make you memorable, express your unique selling proposition, and connect with your audience, which can lead to better retention and sales over time. 

Let’s look at some of the best paid and free logo makers to start designing your logo now. 

Best free logo maker apps and generators

Coming up with a well-designed, unique logo can be challenging. It can feel like you don’t know where to start and you’ll have to hire a professional designer to get the job done. 

To help you find the perfect logo (without breaking the bank), we’ve put together a list of the best free logo makers online to make sure your brand is memorable and differentiates you from the competition.

  • Hatchful by Shopify
  • Canva
  • Logo Maker by Ucraft

1. Hatchful by Shopify

If you’re looking for the best free logo maker online, Shopify has got you covered. Hatchful is a mobile app for iOS and Android that helps you build a brand from scratch, right from the palm of your hand. It’s also trusted by 140,000+ business owners.

Just answer a few questions about your business and Hatchful will suggest logos from hundreds of available templates. From there, you can take advantage of the following benefits:

  • Save time and money. The logo maker is free to use, so anyone can create incredible branded logos in minutes. 
  • Hundreds of templates. Choose from hundreds of distinct logo templates designed by professionals—all for free.
  • Full brand packages. You don’t have to stop at your logo. Download brand assets for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube to grow your brand on social media.
  • Intuitive design studio. Customize colors, add icons, edit layouts, and more to build a unique brand. 
  • Tailored for your industry. Discover logos specifically for your industry. Provide Hatchful with your brand values and the tool will take care of the rest. 

Hatchful is free to use, whether you’re a Shopify merchant or not. There are premium logo templates you can buy within the app. You’ll only be charged if you decide to download them. Overall, it’s a handy tool if you’re looking for a free, unforgettable logo that represents your brand. 

2. Canva 

Canva is probably the most hands-on logo maker on the list. You can click through from the homepage into Canva’s logo editor. You won’t be asked any questions about your business, but will have access to hundreds of templates. The templates are broken down by niches such as badges, art/design, fashion, sports, food and drink, automotive, and more. 

Some of the logos in this creator are clever and fun, but you’ll have to do the editing on your own. Canva’s design tool makes it really simple, plus, it has a ton of support articles to help if you get stuck on anything. Once you finish your design, you can download for free and use it as you please.

3. Logo Maker by Ucraft

Logo Maker by Ucraft is a free logo generator that helps you create a professional logo in just a few clicks. You’ll find a selection of icons, fonts, and shapes to use for designing a logo from scratch. Then you’re free to export your new logo in PNG format for free or in SVG or EPS format for $7. 

The result? You’ll get a transparent, high-resolution PNG file, so you can reuse it everywhere—and it’s completely free.

Best paid logo makers online

The following online makers are free to try. Some of them will allow you to download a low-resolution JPEG of your logo, but you’ll have to pay to download the vector files.

  • Looka
  • Tailor Brands Logo Maker
  • Logomaker
  • Designhill
  • BrandCrowd
  • GraphicSprings Logo Creator
  • Placeit

1. Looka 

Looka is an interactive, AI-powered online logo maker. When you visit Looka’s website, you enter your company name and click Get Started. You’re then prompted to type in your industry, be it consulting, restaurant, beauty, etc. 

Once you input your industry, you’ll choose five or more logos for Looka to use as inspiration for your own. You can then pick your favorite color palette and give a little more information about your company. Lastly, you’ll select symbols for your logo, or you can have Looka pick the best symbols for you. 

The tool suggests 12 logos at first, but you can click Load More Logo! to get more ideas. Once you choose a logo you like, Looka will take you to an editor where you can make any last minute changes before downloading it. You can download the logo for a small fee or pay for an entire brand kit (with letterheads, social media icons, invoices, etc.) for $7.99 per month. 

2. Tailor Brands Logo Maker 

Tailor Brands Logo Maker offers a great free online logo maker. It asks you to enter a logo name (or any business name idea) and a tagline that describes your brand. You’re then prompted to answer questions about your business including:

  • What you’re offering
  • Your industry
  • A business description

It then asks you a few questions about your style preferences. You’ll be asked to choose which logo types and font styles you prefer. By answering these questions, you’ll have a more targeted list of logos to choose from. It’ll also display your logo on business cards, social media profiles, t-shirts, and other branded assets. One thing to note: you’ll have to sign up for Tailor Brands’ email list to see your logo options. 

3. Logomaker 

Logomaker allows you to make a logo online in minutes. Simply select your industry and add your brand name on the first screen. Then click Make A Logo, and you’ll be prompted to choose three logo types, font styles, and layouts. Then you’ll see a list of logo design ideas you can edit and save to make it your own.

If you want to own the copyright and download the vector files, you’ll have to pay a minimum of $40.

4. Designhill

If you’re looking for premium logos, this online logo maker will give you dozens of high-quality options to choose from. Designhill asks you a series of questions about your brand, then provides tailored options based on your answers. You can tweak colors, slogans, symbols, and other customization options to determine which style best fits your brand. 

Designhill offers different payment options for your company logo, too. You can buy the logo file for $20, or you can buy logo files for your website, social media, print, packaging, and branding for a $65 one-time payment. 

5. BrandCrowd 

BrandCrowd is another logo creation site for business owners. This one gives you logo ideas once you enter your business name and click Make Logos Now. You can also browse BrandCrowd has designed for inspiration before giving away any information. Once you find the perfect logo, you can personalize it in BrandCrowd’s editing tool. You’ll be able to tailor the layout, colors, text, shadows, and other design elements to fit your brand. 

When you’re happy with your design, you can buy it for $45 and get high-resolution files and multiple logo variations.

6. GraphicSprings Logo Creator

If you’re looking for a powerful do-it-yourself logo design software, GraphicSprings is a good choice for you. You just have to enter your business name and tagline (optional) and an editor will appear. You’ll have access to a library of logos to start from, then you can customize any part to make it your own.

One of the great features it has is the ability to break down logo types depending on your business. Here are some examples:

  • Food and drink
  • Abstract
  • Letter-based

You can also hire someone from the GraphicSprings team to create a totally custom logo for you, if you aren’t satisfied with its logo creator. The logo generator is free to use, but you’ll need to pay $19.99 to save the design files.

7. Placeit 

Placeit offers over 13,000 different logo designs for you to choose from. All you need to do is enter your business name and industry into the generator and a list of cool logos will appear. Each logo has its own color scheme and aesthetic. 

They’re also fully customizable. Simply click the logo you want and you’ll end up in Placeit’s editing tool. You can change text, symbols, color schemes, and more to create the best logo for your brand. Once you’re finished with the design, you can buy your logo for a one-time fee of $39.95.

Free logo design templates

A free logo design template can help build a memorable logo in minutes. Hatchful’s pre-design templates include all the color schemes and design elements you need to create a professional looking logo in minutes. 

Hatchful offers hundreds of templates and designs that fit any brand. You can access all of them for free, letting you create beautiful logos that stand out and connect with potential customers. Even if you don’t have design experience, you can still build a business logo you can be proud of—Hatchful makes it super easy.

Logo design tips

DesignBuddy analyzed the world’s top brands and what their logos have in common. Here are some key insights from the research, which you might want to consider when designing your logo with one of the above logo design tools:

  • 95% of the world’s top brands logos use one or two colors.
  • 41% of those brands use stylized type as their logo.
  • 93% are simple enough to be recognized at much smaller sizes.

When thinking about which colors to use for your logo, read this article from Buffer, which explores why Facebook is blue as well as the science of colors in marketing.

There are also a few important design rules to remember before diving into these logo makers. These tips are taken from the design pros at Creative Bloq:

  • Keep it simple. A simple logo design allows for easy recognition and allows the logo to be versatile and memorable. Effective logos feature something unexpected or unique without being overdrawn.
  • Make it memorable. Following closely behind the principle of simplicity is that of memorability. An effective logo design should be memorable and this is achieved by having a simple yet appropriate logo.
  • Design for the long-term. An effective logo should endure the test of time. The logo should be future proof, meaning that it should still represent your value proposition in five to ten years.
  • Make it versatile. An effective logo should be able to work across a variety of mediums and applications.

Common mistakes to avoid when designing a logo

Here are some common mistakes that we’ve come across when digging through thousands of ecommerce logos. Be sure to avoid these critical design errors when using one of the above online logo makers:

  • Avoid using unattractive clip art.
  • Don’t make your logo overly complex.
  • Make sure it looks good in black and white.

If you’re ever in doubt when creating your logo, you can always hire a graphic designer to help. Head to the Shopify Experts to find one and make your business stand out.

Design your own logo today

Now you have a great idea of where to get started with your startup’s logo. So get inspired and get creative! With all of the logo design tools and resources above, you’re well on your way. If you have any tools or resources we may have missed, let us know in the comments below.

Illustration by Rose Wong

Free online logo maker FAQ

How can I create my own logo?

  • Create your brand identity.
  • Look for design inspiration.
  • Generate a logo with a free online app.
  • Pick colors that represent your brand.
  • Choose a font.
  • Create a few rough versions of your logo.
  • Get feedback.
  • Refine your best design.

How can I make a logo for free?

  • Find a free logo maker app online.
  • Enter the requested information, like business name, visual style, fonts, and colors.
  • Let the logo builder display options according to your input.
  • Choose a logo and customize it.
  • Download your logo for free.

What are the best free logo makers?

  • Hatchful by Shopify
  • Looka
  • Tailor Brands Logo Maker
  • Canva
  • Ucraft
  • GraphicSprings Logo Creator
  • Logomaker
  • Placeit
  • Designhill
  • BrandCrowd
Shopify Tutorial

Browse the Best Shopify Themes for Your Online Store (No Matter What Industry You’re In)

May 4, 2021 , by 露露

This article is from Shopify, and was republished and shared through Elksourcing with the permission of Shopify.
Original link:https://www.shopify.com/blog/shopify-themes

Shopify’s mission is to make commerce better for everyone, and to date, we’ve helped over 1 million independent businesses turn what they’re into, into a business. Part of fulfilling that promise means ensuring our platform has beautiful, mobile-friendly themes available so you can build and customize your online store to your liking.

Thanks to Shopify’s team of designers and developers, along with our many talented Partners, there is a wide selection of Shopify themes available to fit any budget and any industry. Below, we’ll first list the free Shopify themes you can use if you’re a cash-strapped upstart looking to get started, followed by a few premium Shopify themes available from our Partners.

All premium themes are organized by industry—including fashion and apparel, jewelry and accessories, home, electronics, toys and games, and more—so you can find the perfect fit for your selection of products.

Free Shopify themes to start your online store

When you’re starting a new business, money may be a bit tight until you make your few first sales. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make one of the best ecommerce websites with a fast, high-converting Shopify theme. Below are the eight free Shopify themes developed in-house by our expert team. Each offers industry-leading performance and deep levels of customization, all for the right price: free!

1. Narrative

Price: Free

Theme styles: Warm, Light, Cold

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Featuring a bold hero video (or slideshow), Narrative is perfect for visual storytelling and serves as the perfect complement for a single product business, or a store with a small catalog of items.

2. Simple

Price: Free

Theme styles: Light, Beauty, Toy

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Simple lets your products do the talking. Featuring built-in product recommendations and image zoom for every product, Simple’s takes a backseat so customers can appreciate the finer details of your catalog.

3. Minimal

Price: Free

Theme styles: Vintage, Fashion, Modern

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Neatly organize your products with this clean, simple design that also features an optional section for a home page video or slideshow, along with built-in product filtering so customers can find what they’re looking for.

4. Debut

Price: Free

Theme styles: Default, Light

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Debut your brand with the ideal Shopify theme for a carefully curated selection of products. Don’t let the simple design fool you, as there’s a ton of power under the hood, including built-in customer testimonials, predictive search, and an optional promotional banner.

5. Supply

Price: Free

Theme styles: Blue, Light

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Have a lot of products to sell? Supply can help you smartly organize your products by collections and encourage customers to purchase more. With featured collections available on your homepage along with collection filtering in the sidebar, the products your customers are searching for will only be a click or two away.

6. Brooklyn

Price: Free

Theme styles: Classic, Playful

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Modern apparel businesses should find the perfect fit with Brooklyn. With turn-key features like a slide-out cart, so customers can easily add items without having to leave the page, Brooklyn will ensure your store looks as good as your clothes⁠—and converts, too.

7. Venture

Price: Free

Theme styles: Snowboards, Outdoor, Boxing

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Another one of our free Shopify themes that’s tailor-made for large product catalogs. Venture includes a multi-column menu so you can showcase granular details in a drop-down menu. You’ll also be able to highlight a single flagship product should you so choose.

8. Boundless

Price: Free

Theme styles: Black & White, Vibrant

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Put your product photography in full focus with Boundless, a theme that lets your photos speak a thousand words. Showcase high-resolution product imagery with a dedicated product gallery or through a full-width grid layout for your collection images.

Shopify themes for fashion and apparel businesses

Fashion and apparel businesses are consistently some of the most popular on Shopify. When choosing the best Shopify theme for this vertical, look for an eye-catching design that includes enough functionality to let your customers see the finer details of your products. Photography, especially lifestyle photography, tends to run the show for fashion and apparel.

9. Streamline

Price: $180

Theme styles: Core, Luxe, Hype

Theme developer: Archetype Themes

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Style and substance: Streamline features a handy sticky checkout, so customers’ carts are always in reach. You’ll also find built-in advanced product filtering, so customers can sort by brand, type, color, or size on the collection page.

10. Context

Price: $180

Theme styles: Chic, Modern, Essential

Theme developer: Fluorescent Design Inc.

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

If you’re not a single product business but don’t sell a massive catalog of products, Context may offer the perfect sweet spot. Context includes a nice balance of features, including advanced product filtering and search for discovery, but also bold, story-focused product pages so you can highlight flagship items.

11. Handy

Price: $180

Theme styles: Light, Cool, Fresh

Theme developer: Pixel Union

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Handy’s mobile-first design was built from the ground up for smaller devices and mobile commerce. Featuring custom promotion tiles and continuous product scroll functionality, customers will find it easy to browse and buy your products on mobile.

12. Venue

Price: $180

Theme styles: Morning, Evening, Weekend

Theme developer: Safe As Milk

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Venue is a great choice for businesses who sell online and in-person, with a dates and events section that’s perfect for getting customers to visit your brick and mortar location. There are also unique features like a built-in age-checker popup for businesses selling age-restricted products.

13. Galleria

Price: $180

Theme styles: Empire, Boutique, Showroom

Theme developer: Mile High Themes

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Is your store selling an entire wardrobe? Galleria blends the perfect mix of features to encourage discoverability and fine-tooth inspection, with collection filtering in the sidebar along with quick views for individual products and bold, image-focused product pages.

Shopify themes for jewelry and accessory businesses

14. Modular

Price: $160

Theme styles: Chelsea, Mayfair, Hoxton

Theme developer: Presidio Creative

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Modular’s grid-focused design is built with branding and conversion in mind. The product grid lets you showcase collections, products, or brand imager, while the quick buy feature and built-in testimonials can help drive more sales.

15. District

Price: $160

Theme styles: District, Energy, Coast

Theme developer: Style Hatch

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Have a featured product or collection you’d like to highlight? District can help you put the limelight on a recent release or flagship product with a prominent home page video or slideshow. You can also catch customers’ attention with a built-in banner or pop-up modal.

16. Kagami

Price: $180

Theme styles: Kyoto, Baptiste, Geneve

Theme developer: Maestrooo

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Mix and max lifestyle photography with more detailed product photos with Kagami’s dynamic grid layout. And with two distinct menu styles, featured homepage product videos, and built-in product recommendations, you’re sure to find a design that fits your style.

17. Prestige

Price: $180

Theme styles: Allure, Couture, Vogue

Theme developer: Maestrooo

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Built for sellers of premium products, this Shopify theme supports high-resolution product imagery that’s perfect for visual storytelling. You’ll also find image hotspot linking so you can share the finer details of your products, along with a built-in timeline tool to tell your brand’s story.

18. Impulse

Price: $180

Theme styles: Modern, Vintage, Bold

Theme developer: Archetype Themes

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Put the right offer and product in front of your customers with Impulse, which features custom promotion tiles, collection sidebar filters, sub-listings in collections, and the ability to create custom promotional content on collection pages.

Shopify themes for houseware and home/garden businesses

When you sell products that fit your customers’ personal spaces, your job is to help them envision life after their purchase. A sunroom might get the perfect accessory, and a garden may find a theme the customer enjoys—in most cases, your product will become a way the customer shapes the space they live in.

19. Cascade

Price: $180

Theme styles: Classic, Bright, Modern

Theme developer: Switch

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Let your customers envision your products in their space with Cascade’s unique narrative-focused design. You’ll also find a masonry-style grid and built-in product feature highlights, so your products are easy to find and understand.

20. Artisan

Price: $180

Theme styles: Barcelona, Phoenix, Victoria

Theme developer: Out of the Sandbox

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Does your business blend products and complementary services? Artisan lets you create a tailored contact form that should perfectly suit your business needs. This Shopify theme also includes elegantly designed tables so you can feature products, services, or both side-by-side.

21. Story

Price: $180

Theme styles: Chronicle, Quest, Heritage

Theme developer: Groupthought

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Every business has a story that makes its presence in the space unique. Story is, unsurprisingly, built to help you tell it. There’s the familiar timeline tool, story-focused product pages, and even a team showcase so customers know your “why” before they buy.

22. Responsive

Price: $180

Theme styles: London, Paris, New York, San Francisco

Theme developer: Out of the Sandbox

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

For certain home and houseware products, customers have to imagine it alongside other aesthetic choices they’ve made. Responsive plays nicely with this need, by having color swatches available by default, along with full-width photography and FAQ pages to let customers see all of the details, anyway they’d like to.

23. Mr. Parker

Price: $160

Theme styles: Wardrobe, Sunset, Apothecary, Desk

Theme developer: We Are Underground

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Looking for the ideal sweet spot for a medium-sized catalog? Mr. Parker may be the best Shopify theme for you. With native product filtering and a sidebar to curate collection pages, customers looking to outfit their whole space will be sure to find what they need.

Shopify themes for health and beauty businesses

When you’re looking for a best-fit Shopify theme for your health, beauty, or fitness business, remember that you’re often selling the outcome rather than the product itself. Customers often want to visualize either how the product will make them look, or how they’ll use it to improve their appearance, energy levels, etc. Look for Shopify themes that let your design showcase a nice interplay between the products you sell, and the people who use them.

24. Blockshop

Price: $160

Theme styles: Beauty, Moto, Summer, Deli

Theme developer: Troop Themes

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Blockshop’s front-and-center header slideshow (with optional video) lets you put one of your key products, or categories, front and center. The grid layout, meanwhile, makes it easy for customers to discover new arrivals, sales, and other popular collections.

25. Testament

Price: $140

Theme styles: Genesis Exodus Revelation Deliverance

Theme developer: We Are Underground

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Sell premium beauty products with Testament’s lustrous design and colorways. With the product quick view—so customers won’t have to leave their current page when viewing product details—and the available sticky navigation, you’ll be able to blend stylish chic with high conversions.

26. Envy

Price: $180

Theme styles: Copenhagen, Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm

Theme developer: WeTheme

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Envy’s clean aesthetic has the perfect layout for differentiating flagship products (or products on sale) from your other collections. And, you can capture emails with the built-in marketing popup or point your customers in the right direction with a banner.

27. Vantage

Price: $160

Theme styles: Clean, Mono, Reclaimed, Black

Theme developer: We Are Underground

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

With Vantage’s bold style, you’re sure to turn heads—but you’ll also turn visitors into customers. Since finding the right colorway is often crucial for beauty products, Vantage lets you display color swatches on all of your product pages.

28. Atlantic

Price: $180

Theme styles: Organic, Light, Modern, Chic

Theme developer: Pixel Union

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Does your business exist to fill customer’s vanity tables? Atlantic is a great Shopify theme for beauty business with large catalogs that need a clean, accessible way to surface products and let customers effortlessly add items to their cart.

Shopify themes for art and photography businesses

No surprise, art and photography stores require a Shopify theme that lets them put each work on display, while still lets customers find the right print, style, or aesthetic for them. The right balance between uncompromising photography quality and careful curation can be tricky, but these Shopify themes will help you find the sweet spot.

29. Editorial

Price: $160

Theme styles: Agency, Armour, Adventure

Theme developer: Switch

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Perfect for print! While Editorial features a number of great features to power your written content, such as its ability to support multiple blogs, it’s also an ideal match for high-resolution photography. Best of all, it includes image zoom functionality for all products so customers can see every detail.

30. California

Price: $180

Theme styles: California, Cartomaps, Sundays, Kentia

Theme developer: Small Victories

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

A Shopify theme for the prolific artists (or just the organized ones). California sports a lean, simple design with advanced product filtering and a home page collection grid, so you can feature products from multiple collections for easy browsing.

31. Icon

Price: $160

Theme styles: Dolce, Christian, Yves, Vera

Theme developer: We Are Underground

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Your prints, designs, or paintings leave an impression; your online store should, too. With a design that accommodates large photographs and images, native slideshow functionality, and a quick view for product details, Icon may offer the perfect design to house your designs.

32. Symmetry

Price: $180

Theme styles: Beatnik, Salt Yard, Chantilly, Duke

Theme developer: Clean Canvas

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

For larger catalogs, Symmetry features a bevy of tools to help you find the right layout and design. With reorderable home page rows, multi-column and multi-level menus, and a long-form design available on the homepage, your store will be able to help customers find the piece that speaks to them.

33. Label

Price: $160

Theme styles: Record, Publish, Create

Theme developer: Switch

Theme demo: Desktop , Mobile

Prefer to use your unique aesthetic for a small, hand-picked sample of products? The Label theme for Shopify is built for the contemporary designer and seller with a small catalog. The full-width imagery and front-and-center layout will make your flagship product impossible to miss.

Shopify Tutorial

Ecommerce Website Designs: 27 Best Online Shops and Why They Work

May 4, 2021 , by 露露

This article is from Shopify, and was republished and shared through Elksourcing with the permission of Shopify.
Original link:https://www.shopify.com/blog/best-ecommerce-sites

People don’t really judge a book by its cover, do they? Of course they do!

Whether it’s the presentation of food at a fancy restaurant or the latest Apple product, humans seem to just love things that are beautifully designed. The same principle applies to websites, especially in the ecommerce field. If you’re not presenting your visitors with the best website design and packaging your products nicely, you’re definitely leaving money on the table.

Attractive, cool website designs have always played a key role in a successful online sales and marketing strategy. That’s because beautiful design and an excellent color palette can increase the perceived value of your products.

Whether you’re about to create a brand new ecommerce site or you’ve been thinking about redesigning your current site, the following list of the 27 best website designs (and more!) should give you ample ecommerce website design inspiration.

What makes a good ecommerce website? 

People judge the design of your ecommerce website the minute they land on it.

In fact, studies have shown that it takes 50 milliseconds for browsers to decide if they’ll stay on a site or not. You get .05 seconds to impress users, which is why website design is so important for your ecommerce business. 

What makes a good ecommerce website can be defined by four elements:

1. Trust

Imagine walking into a retail store and seeing a huge disaster. Clothes are everywhere, it’s dirty, no one greets you or makes you feel welcome. What are you going to do next? Probably get out of there as soon as possible. 

When someone visits your store for the first time, they may not know anything about your brand, the quality of your products, or your commitment to making customers happy. Deals might earn their consideration, but they’ll need to trust you before they actually go through with a purchase.

Customers need to know that when they buy from you, they’ll receive the product as advertised. 

There are three essential trust indicators every business should include on their website:

Contact information

Nothing throws potential customers off more than a website without contact information. Include an email and, if possible, a phone number and a mailing address. This type of information, along with an About page, helps potential customers feel they’re buying from a real person.

A return policy

A return policy not only makes it easier for people to bring back products that don’t satisfy them, it actually increases sales by lowering shopping cart abandonment and instilling the customer with a sense of confidence and trust that they can send back an item if they need to, without any transaction fees. 

Technical certifications

By adding Shopify Payments, you’ll have access to advanced features and payment services featuring the latest security technology for protecting your customers’ information. Don’t hesitate to use graphics or badges to show your security compliance and all the payment methods you accept.

Customer trust is hardest to earn when you don’t have any customers, so you’ll want to incorporate these trust indicators as you design your store.

2. Good visual appeal

Visual appeal is essential to help customers envision your products online and click Buy.

Perception is everything when selling your products online. People form their first impression of your site in mere milliseconds. With your Shopify store, making that impression count rests largely on the quality of your images.

Think of it this way: your product photography is like an ambassador, sharing the promise of your product online. Your customer can’t try, taste, feel, or wear your product before they buy, so they’ll rely heavily on your visuals to decide if that product is right for them.

Generally, you want to include product photos with a white background, as well as lifestyle photos of your products in use. Outdoor Voices’ homepage features lifestyle images to communicate its brand side-by-side with more product-centric images to entice visitors to learn more. 

Products photographed on a white background are the gold standard of ecommerce photography. That’s because the white background makes it easier to see the item in detail and strips away the branding so your product can appeal to different demographics.

Whether you’re selling through your own Shopify store, Amazon, or eBay, lifestyle photos are important because they allow customers to envision using a product in their day-to-day life by picturing themselves as the model being shown. 

Your product photos are a key factor in your store engagement, conversion, and retention.

Beyond product photos, you also need to consider your site’s colors and fonts. You may have the most incredible product, but if the aesthetics of your website—specifically its colors and fonts—don’t work, your customers will be put off and may not make a purchase. The look of your store plays into the overall experience of buying the product.

Color is one of the most powerful tools you can use to spark interest and emotion. It can also be used to draw attention to specific sections of your website and lead your customer down the buyer’s journey.

Limit your site to two main colors—a primary color and a secondary color. To choose your colors, you can use two great resources. Go to Dribbble to search for a color palette. For example, if you type in “red,” you can see examples of websites that use red in their color palette and decide which options are most visually appealing. 

Here’s an example where the business used simple black on white text with shades of green as its accent colors.

Another key consideration is your website’s accessibility. You want the colors you select to contrast enough that people of all ages and abilities can read and see your text.

Lastly, you’ll want to give some thought to typography. Customers expect to see dynamic and interesting typography on websites, not stale fonts like Times New Roman. While the words you write share information, it’s the typography that communicates the emotion behind that information.

The good news is, with a store builder like Shopify, you can access templates with recommended fonts and designs. You can use these fonts on your website or choose fonts from another source to make the necessary customizations you need.

As with colors, it’s a good idea to stick to two fonts and create a hierarchy between them. Managing multiple fonts can be tricky for non-designers, and your website can become very messy looking. Using just two fonts simplifies things. Choose one font as your header or title font and another to be your body font. 

Supergoop does a great job of selecting a title font that reflects its brand while its body font is simple, clear, and easy to read. 

A unique header font can add some flourish to your brand, while the body font will be your workhorse, used for all the other copy on your website, from product descriptions to checkout instructions. 

While display fonts can have a little more flourish because of their size, it’s important to pick a body font that’s readable. Not every customizable font is designed for screen reading and picking the wrong one (a thin sans serif, for example) could drive customers away if they can’t read your site.

3. Responsive format for mobile and web

According to comScore, nearly 70% of digital media time is spent on mobile devices. Unfortunately, many ecommerce solutions don’t optimize for mobile and are built only with desktop browsing in mind. This can result in a fair number of lost new sales.

If you’re building your business with Shopify, your store is “responsive.” This means the site is user friendly on different devices and screen sizes, whether customers view it on a desktop, smartphone, or tablet.

When choosing a theme based on mobile optimization, it’s best to personally test the ease of use to see if you’re happy with the transactional flow. If you’re not, there’s a good chance your customers won’t be either. Elements like cart drawers and easy-to-follow mobile navigation are crucial when finalizing your choice.

4. Easy navigation

Your website navigation should help customers find your products quickly and easily. Good navigation also helps improve SEO on your site so you get found in search results. 

Good navigation improves the online shopping experience and helps merchants increase their sales and profits. Navigation can also influence the theme you choose. For example, if you have a large catalogue of products, a theme with a bigger menu might be best for you.

Here are some guidelines to follow when designing your store: first, try to stick to only a few menu headers in your navigation. Be clear and direct when labeling these headers—this is no time to be clever. Here are headers you can use for top-level navigation:

  • Shop [Product Category]
  • About Us
  • Bestsellers
  • Contact Us

Here are three great examples of menus that make navigation simple. The visitor knows exactly what they’re getting each time. As a beginner, I still think you should start with the four listed above, but over time, you’ll learn what your audience gravitates to. 

Additional navigation links can go in your footer—the section at the bottom of your website. Here are the labels I recommend for your footer:

  • Shop [Product Category]
  • Return Policy
  • Terms of Service
  • Contact Us

You can always change your headers if you notice they’re not being clicked on or add on a sub-navigation menu to include links to other important pages or product collections.

27 best ecommerce website examples in 2020 (and why they work)

For a little inspiration when building your online store, explore the best ecommerce websites listed under the categories below: 

  • Artists
  • Small business
  • Fashion
  • Dropshipping
  • Health and beauty
  • Food and grocery
  • Sports and fitness

Artists

1. KETNIPZ

KETNIPZ is an Instagram comic turned brand empire created by Harry Hambley. You can find Bean, the main character, on murals around the world, throughout social media, and even tattooed on the bodies of fans. KETNIPZ’s website design reflects Bean’s quirky personality, with bright colors, unique fonts, and seasonal updates to align product launches with upcoming holidays. 

2. Fred Jourdain

It’s hard to find the best way for creators to sell their art online, but Fred Jourdain’s ecommerce website does it right. His homepage banner rotates through his latest and greatest pieces. You can also find interviews on the website and read more about the inner workings of how he creates his art. Between scrolling through interviews, art books, and different projects and publications, you can’t help but stay intrigued by the artist just from landing on his online store. 

Small business

3. Pura vida bracelets

To foster trust, jewelry retailer Pura Vida Bracelets showcases five-star product reviews from thousands of customers on its landing page, on top of reviews from target-audience-appropriate media outlets like BuzzFeed and HuffPost.

Its products are the star of the site, photographed in a way that makes them vibrant and detailed so customers love what they see.

Again, Pura Vida Bracelets sticks with the powerful and simple CTA Shop Now to get customers clicking. It highlights free shipping at the top of the page (79% of US consumers say free shipping makes them more likely to shop online). It also has a cool chat bubble in the bottom-right corner for shoppers to click and get help whenever they need it.

4. MVMT

MVMT’s core brand value, “Style shouldn’t break the bank,” is reflected in its website design. It presents sleek, sophisticated colors and styling that showcases watches, eyewear, and jewelry at affordable prices. Plus, it highlights collaborations with designers and provides a Trending Now section on the homepage so people can quickly check the latest designs. 

5. The Paper Cub Co.

The Paper Cub Co. keeps it simple on its ecommerce site with a design that’s clear, simple, and shows its products in the best light. Eye-popping colors and playful photography showcase The Paper Cub’s brand and keeps you interested in browsing its bestseller thank you cards, checklists, postcards, and more. 

6. Verve Roasters

Like Pura Vida Bracelets, Verve Roasters uses five-star reviews to build trust throughout its ecommerce website. 

The online coffee retailer also uses evocative language paired with stylish photography to keep customers on the page. For example, it promises to be “classic and delicious” and delivers on this expectation through evocative word choice, such as “the sweetness of golden marmalade.” A free shipping offer paired with the ability to add products to your cart from the get-go gives customers all the more reason to buy.

Fashion

7. Allbirds

Sustainable apparel store Allbirds reinforces itself as a brand eco-conscious shoppers can trust through the targeted language in its copy, such as “Made with natural materials.” Trust is also achieved through its Certified B Corporation certificate.

Its products are the first thing you see on the page, worn by models that fit with Allbirds’ target market, making customers think, These are my kind of clothes. Allbirds also highlights its favorite picks, using vivid words to encourage click-throughs. 

There’s nothing fancy about Allbirds’ call to actions (CTA). That’s the point. Shop Men and Shop Women makes it super clear what to do next. 

8. Hardgraft

The minute you visit Hardgraft’s ecommerce store, you know if it’s for you or not. Its messaging builds trust with buyers who want luxury goods and appreciate rugged, earthy aesthetics. The homepage design is simple and offers visitors an endless scroll through its beautifully photographed products. 

Hardgraft’s product pages are on point, with crisp, bold images that share important product features and value propositions encouraging shoppers to buy. And it offers safe, worldwide shipping so it doesn’t deter international visitors from exploring its store. 

9. Topo designs

Outerwear shop Topo Designs uses images that resonate with its target market—young and stylish outdoor enthusiasts—while using unique backgrounds to stand out from other outerwear brands. Its website has great top navigation so you can quickly find what you’re looking for. 

Another key website design best practice is how the brand incentives sales. It highlights free shipping on US orders of more than $50, as well as on returns and exchanges. The brand also offers a newsletter signup CTA incentive of a 15% discount, compelling customers to take action. 

10. Alice + Whittles

Sustainable shoe store Alice and Whittles masters trust-building by promising customers a super-easy shopping experience. It highlights its shipping and returns policy, plus an option to pay in installments if shoppers don’t have the cash upfront. 

It also includes a chatbot on the landing page for shoppers to get quick answers to their questions, solidifying trust and encouraging them to buy.

The addition of a Last Chance menu widget adds urgency to the buying process, making shoppers think, I need to purchase these items before they are gone forever. 

11. Chubbies

Chubbies has built a following of men who love short-shorts. The website design is key in that it evokes Chubbies’ brand values with captivating product photography and witty copy. The sidebar navigation, although different from most ecommerce website designs, presents a neat menu where shoppers can find their products faster and easier. 

12. KITH

KITH’s homepage design grabs your attention the minute you land on it. Shoppers are met with a brand video and a harmonic, sleek color palette of white and black. The site feels clean, yet sparks interest so you want to explore different menu options like (of course) clothing, but also treats and content such as lookbooks, films, journals, and more. KITH’s catalog is big, but categories are still presented in a way that lets you quickly explore and find what you’re looking for.

Dropshipping

13. Subtle Asian Treats

Subtle Asian Treats is a top Shopify dropshipping store that sells handpicked plushies and other kawaii merchandise, like AirPod and iPhone cases. The site is easy to navigate, letting customers quickly access shipping FAQs, pricing discounts, and customer reviews. 

Besides the overly cute products, Subtle Asian Treats builds trust with visitors by showing a personal note from founder Laura Chang and user-generated content from its Instagram feed. Also, rather than sign up for an email marketing list, it gives you the option to sign up for a text VIP club to receive exclusive deals and discounts. 

14. Modern Urban Jungle

Modern Urban Jungle is a go-to store for plant lovers. The site has a fresh and engaging overall design with a welcoming color scheme and beautiful photography. From the layout to the product images, this ecommerce store’s design rounds off its brand promise of bringing the outside in with decor, homewares, and gifts.

15. Boba Love

Boba Love created a homepage that guides visitors right into the shopping experience. It uses lifestyle images and product photography to communicate its brand values. Boba Love gets the product grid right—it’s clean and clear in directing what it wants visitors to do: buy Boba tea-inspired products. 

Health and beauty

16. Satya Organic Skincare

You can tell branding was a priority in Satya Organic Skincare’s ecommerce website design. Once you land on the homepage, you’re met with earthy tones and signals that if you’re looking for plant-based goods, you’re in the right place. A cool addition is an opening video from the founder of Satya Organic Skincare talking about how the brand combats ocean plastics. It’s a great way to humanize your brand and welcome new visitors.

17. Beardbrand

Beardbrand takes a sophisticated, mature, and Old World approach to presenting its grooming products throughout its website design. Using a quiz and blog posts that are worth reading, the site encourages you to stick around, engage with the brand, and buy. 

18. Woodlot

Woodlot’s ecommerce site is minimal yet intriguing, which makes it easy to connect with the essence of the brand. The website design, from homepage to product pages to checkout, has a calming and beautiful visual appearance, which 93% of consumers say is a key factor in making a purchase decision. The number of products, alongside good product descriptions and affordable prices, makes you want to keep exploring and learning more about what Woodlot offers.

19. Kylie Cosmetics

As soon as you land on the Kylie Cosmetics homepage, you see a picture of Kylie Jenner, a beauty icon for young people. Her endorsement immediately gives the site a huge trust and credibility boost. Each product is also well displayed on a white background, plus, when you hover over an image, you can see a woman using it in action. 

20. Pilgrim 

Pilgrim does a great job of designing its ecommerce site with its target audience in mind. It uses clear copy that explains exactly what its product is, while highlighting social proof on the homepage via reviews and media mentions. It’s a clean and modern web design that exhibits the feel of the product and package that keeps you interested in buying. 

Food and grocery

21. Old World Kitchen

Old World Kitchen checks all the boxes for creating an excellent shopping experience:

  • Vintage styling and design that represents an established brand
  • Content and education that helps you appreciate the brand
  • Excellent product photography and presentation 

The website was clearly designed with its target audience in mind and is key to making it stand out in a sea of kitchen and dining goods competition. 

22. Partake Foods

If you love healthy and eco-conscious cookies, you’ll love the website design for cookie shop Partake. Right away, you see reassuring copy, including “gluten-free,” “vegan,” and “allergy friendly.” 

No one can escape the enticement of Super Delicious Cookies (Partakes’ headline), and this is enhanced through copious images of tasty-looking treats on its homepage. The deal is then sealed through a simple Shop Now CTA. 

The website footer also builds trust with customers through allergy-specific certificates. 

23. Tessemae’s

Condiment and dressing store Tessemae’s offers discounts to customers, giving them a compelling reason to shop from the get-go. In the process, Tessemae’s gets customer emails for its newsletter, enabling the company to nurture them further. Its site’s design is colorful and feels like a modern brand for the younger generation. 

Tessemae’s also uses fan photos (user-generated content to help build trust). It tells visitors that Tessemae’s products are well loved among existing customers. Plus, they provide inspiration as to the many ways the dressings and condiments can be used to create delicious meals, adding an extra incentive to buy. 

24. Death Wish Coffee

Death Wish Coffee has a really bold brand and its not afraid to express it in its storefront. It is known for selling the world’s strongest coffee, and everything from the website copy to the use of red throughout its website design makes you feel like you just drank a cup of it. Death Wish Coffee knows why most people land on its site: to buy its beans. Once you scroll down the homepage, the first thing you see is the option to buy ground, whole bean, or coffee cups. 

Sports and fitness website designs

25. Almond Surfboards

Almond Surfboards uses soft yet elegant tones throughout its online store to give you a stylish but beachy feel. The imagery is creative and unique, which makes it sell like a high-quality brand from the minute you land on the page. Even if you don’t need a surfboard, you can explore different t-shirts, accessories, wall art, and more. 

26. Pure Cycles

Pure Cycles uses a simple layout that makes it clear why you should care about the brand and showcases its bestselling bikes. Its product pages also work to give you the in-person shopping experience online. You can see close-up pictures of specific parts, learn specs, and read other information you need to make an informed buying decision.

27. Leatherhead

Leatherhead has a really cool product (and brand) of custom-made vintage leather balls. Its homepage is a good example of a carousel, showing a series of photos of someone making a football in the workshop. The layout is simple and matches the brand feel of refinement and luxury. Even if you’re not into sports, you’ll definitely want to browse and find a product for a friend or loved who is. 

Ecommerce website design tips

Whether you’re a startup or building your fifth ecommerce store, keep these website design tips in mind:

  • When in doubt, keep it simple. Simple is always key to making more sales in your ecommerce business. The more distractions you put on your website (think banner ads, pop-ups, too many colors), the more it takes away from making the sale. 
  • Express your brand. It doesn’t matter if you’re a photographer, beautician, or dropshippier. People want to buy from established brands they trust and identify with. Take the time to define your brand and figure out what makes you different from competitors. 
  • Use the best ecommerce platform for your online store. When using a platform like Shopify, you can set up a beautiful store with powerful ecommerce features and sell online quickly. You can choose from a range of templates or use Shopify’s online store builder, which offers the functionality to create your own. If you don’t want to use any drag-and-drop builders, you can always hire an ecommerce website designer who specializes in Shopify sites. If you have a WordPress site, you can add the Shopify Buy button to turn your website into an online shop in minutes.
  • Put yourself in a shopper’s shoes. How easy is it to navigate your website? How does it make someone feel when shopping? How easy is the checkout process? Think about what your customer needs to make a purchase in your store and design it accordingly.
  • Use high-quality images. Images can improve a website’s conversion rate by 40%. But they have to be high-quality. Invest in good product photos and use images from free stock photo websites to help increase the visual appeal throughout the shopping experience. 
  • Make it look professional. Want to build trust with shoppers and make sales? You’ll want to have a professional-looking website. Customers won’t give you their hard-earned money or sensitive information like credit card info if it’s anything less.If you’re looking to start an online store and money is tight, there are a wide variety of Shopify themes available to fit any industry and any budget. 
  • Use social proof. When designing your ecommerce site, look for places to show social proof like positive reviews and user-generated content. The more shoppers see the good experiences other people have had with your products, the more likely they’ll be to buy.
  • Make checkout easy. Even if you have a beautiful, innovative ecommerce website design, if checkout is a pain, customers may not buy from you. Make checkout simple, straightforward, and fast. Use payment gateways like Shop Pay, Amazon Pay, PayPal, Stripe, and other accelerated payment options to make it as easy as possible for shoppers to buy.
  • Make it easy for shoppers to reach customer support. When putting together your online shop, use a website chat plugin to connect with shoppers in real time. If someone has a question about shipping rates, deliveries, or general product information, they can reach out to you and get an answer in minutes. 

What’s the best ecommerce website builder for you? 

Whether you’re a musician selling mixtapes or a budding fashion designer, Shopify is an all-in-one ecommerce website builder to help you get online and sell your products. You can start by choosing over 100 ecommerce website templates in the Shopify Theme Store. Each is fully customizable, and you can use our site builder to shape your template by choosing a domain name, adding your logo, brand colors, fonts, and more. 

You can also support your online store with over 3,000 apps in the Shopify App Store to help with marketing, sales, customer service, and more.

With secure web hosting, a streamlined admin dashboard, and unlimited bandwidth, you can set up your ecommerce business quickly and easily. Plus, you have full control over your site’s appearance with the ability to edit your themes HTML and CSS. 

Build your ecommerce website today

When it comes to creating a successful ecommerce site, design is one of the most important things business owners and marketers need to consider. After all, your visitors can form an opinion about your site after just 50 milliseconds. First impressions, much like book covers, matter.

Illustration by Rachel Tunstall

Shopify Tutorial

How to Take High-Quality Product Photos With Your Smartphone

May 4, 2021 , by 露露

This article is from Shopify, and was republished and shared through Elksourcing with the permission of Shopify.
Original link:https://www.shopify.com/blog/15163633-how-to-capture-high-quality-product-photos-with-your-smartphone

So you’ve decided to start an online store and you’ve got at least one product you’re excited to start selling. Your product might look great sitting in your bedroom or home office, but how can you make sure it really stands out in the era of Instagram filters? 

Don’t sweat it. You don’t have to become a professional photographer to take attention-grabbing photos of your products. In this article, you’ll learn, step-by-step, how to take beautiful product photography using only your phone, some natural light, and a good product photo app. 

Table of Contents

  • How to take professional photos with your smartphone
  • How to use natural lighting for product photography
  • How to shoot photography on a mobile phone
  • Best camera angles for product photography
  • How to edit your product photos
  • 5 best apps for product photography
  • Getting the most from your product photography
  • Product photography FAQ

How to take professional photos at home with your smartphone

Most ecommerce store owners know the basics of taking product photos with a smartphone: find a white background and some natural light, choose the highest quality setting and resolution possible on your phone—and click! You have a product photo. This is a great start. 

But there are a few extra tools and accessories that can greatly enhance your photos and demonstrate the value of your product to let shoppers envision it in their lives. 

If you want to become a professional photographer with your smartphone and take amazing product shots, here’s how to build your set up. 

1. Use a room with good lighting

First, find a room in your home with a well-lit window. The bigger the window, the more natural light you’ll have for bringing your product to life.

Image source: Pixc

Taking product photos closer to the window creates a softer light with darker shadows. Being farther away from the light source will give you lighter, shaper shadows. 

2. Choose your smartphone

Most smartphone cameras these days make great DSLR alternatives for product photography. The higher the megapixel count, the better your product photos will come out.

You can use any smartphone with a good camera, but aim to get your hands on a newer model with a 12 megapixel camera or more, such as:

  • Apple iPhone 8 or newer
  • Samsung Galaxy S8 or newer
  • Huawei P20 Pro or newer
  • Google Pixel 2 or newer

3. Get a mini tripod 

Mini tripods can range from inexpensive to pricey, but the good news is, no matter your budget, they’re a good investment with high payoff. A mini tripod will reduce camera shake and help standardize photo angles and style for your product line.

If you want a simple mini tripod, consider the Manfrotto PIXI mini tripod kit.

The Manfrotto PIXI is great for beginners. You can manage smartphones up to 3.3 inches wide, securely held in place by the tripod’s gripping clamp. And it can be placed right on your sweep to easily grab nice, high-quality photos of your products. The Manfrotto PIXI mini tripod kit is available on Amazon for a little over $20.

4. Set up your backdrop 

Place your white backdrop behind your product to give your photographs a clean and consistent look and to eliminate distractions. You could use a white paper sweep, or buy poster board from your local drug store or art shop for cheap. You’ll also need a table to place your backdrop on. 

You can use Scotch tape to hold your backdrop down or stick your product to the backdrop. Sticky tack is also a great workaround if you don’t have Scotch tape.

Always keep your backdrop white. A white backdrop reflects natural light onto the product and gives you an evenly lit photo. It also makes the editing process easier if you need to remove the background. A cream or off-white color will make editing and lighting difficult. Also, try to position your backdrop not only behind your product but underneath it as well. 

5. Use white bounce boards

Controlling the lighting is key when learning how to take product photos with an iPhone or Android. Bounce boards help minimize strong shadows and create a more balanced lighting environment to bring out the finest details of your product. You can buy a white bounce board made of foam on Amazon.

6. Set up a diffuser sheet if the sun is too bright

When the lighting is too harsh, these sheets will soften the light. You can find diffuser sheets on Amazon or DIY one at home with parchment paper, a frosted shower curtain, or printer paper.

Now that you’ve got your setup ready, let’s talk about how to use natural light when taking product photos with an iPhone or other smartphone. 

How to use natural lighting for product photography

Photography lighting can be your best friend or worst enemy when learning how to take product photos with an iPhone or Android. Get it right and you’ll have some amazing product images on your hands. Get it wrong and no image retouching will help save your photo.

There are three key tips that are crucial for getting the best images from your photoshoot. 

1. Shoot in a well-lit room. Natural light through a window is a great option versus a photo studio or artificial light. First, you probably have access to a window (and it’s free). Second, it comes from a single direction, which generates natural shows and adds texture to your products.

Consider the weather—is it sunny or cloudy? To get the look you’re going for, you may prefer a little overcast versus full sunlight. As you’ll see in the example below, it can make a big difference on the shadows and highlights on your photo.

2. Place your setup close to the window. Aim for 90 degrees to the right or left of your setup. Aim to start your photoshoot at the brightest time of day. If it turns out that the sun is too bright, you can always use a diffuser sheet to soften the light. 

Whatever you do, avoid hard light at all costs, as it can make colors look saturated and will highlight the tiniest flaws in your product—things people normally can’t see with the naked eye.

3. Control natural light with foam boards and reflectors. Sometimes the sun will suddenly disappear behind the clouds mid-shoot. If that happens, don’t worry, use your foam boards to bounce and intensify the light to fill shadows. 

If you’re using a reflector, you can manipulate the light reflecting onto your product by moving the reflector closer or further away. This will help reflect natural light from the sun back onto the product. 

Remember to test different angles with the reflector to find the right balance between shadows and lighting. 

Best camera angles for product photography

When it comes to taking product photos for your ecommerce website, there are some angles that work better than others. Offering different perspectives of your product to a shopper can also help answer any questions they have that your product descriptions don’t explain. 

Considering 93% of shoppers use visual appearance as a key deciding factor when buying something online, you want to give as many different viewpoints as possible to highlight key features of your product. An all-around view is more engaging and can help shoppers envision themselves wearing or using your product, which can lead to more sales in your store. 

It’s also important to include close-up shots of your products as well. Close-ups let you capture features that showcase the quality of your product, including print detail, fabric, texture, or product usage, and highlight specific elements of your product that shoppers would want to inspect in a retail store. 

Whether you’re shooting clothing photography or footwear, there are the five camera angles you should test in your photo shoot:

  • Eye level. This view shows the product as you’d see it looking straight on. 
  • High angle.This view shows the product as if you’re looking down at it from an angle.
  • Low angle. This view shows the product as if you’re looking up at it from the floor.
  • Bird’s eye. This view shows the product as if you’re standing over it.
  • Slanted. This view shows the product from one side.

If you’re new to product photography, it’s recommended you keep your smartphone and tripod in the same spot during the shoot and rotate your product to change the angle you want for your image. When you rotate the product versus the camera, your final shots will all be framed the same, plus, you’ll ensure consistency and reduce image editing after the shoot. 

How to shoot photography with a mobile phone

Now that you have all your gear set up and understand the different camera angles and lighting, it’s time to shoot some photos. 

Before you start, use the following checklist to make sure your Android or iPhone camera is ready to shoot. 

  • Prepare your phone. Make sure your phone is charged and you have backup storage for your images.
  • Set up your white balance. To set the white balance according to the light temperature in your setup, touch the WB button, then touch the white background.
  • Check your exposure. Tap the circular Exposure button, then touch your product so that the camera knows to expose it.
  • Keep everything in focus. Touch the circular Focus button, then touch your product so that the camera knows to properly focus on the product.
  • Make sure you lock your camera settings. After you’re done adjusting these settings, tap each one again to lock the settings in place. This will stop the camera from automatically adjusting the settings while you are taking shots.

Once you lock your settings, you’re ready to start shooting!

After your first shot, take a look at your image and see if you think it needs to be brightened or darkened in order to achieve a proper exposure. If you think the exposure needs tweaking, touch the +/- button below the circular Focus button and pull the slider up or down to change the exposure. 

Remember to avoid the following three things in order to get the best product shots:

  • Zoom feature, as this will reduce image quality
  • Selfie camera, which isn’t as good as the back camera
  • Flash, as this will overexpose the photo and mess up the colors 

After you have your shots, it’s time to get to photo editing on your phone!

How to edit product photos on a white background on a smartphone

The idea of editing photos may sound intimidating, but it’s actually really easy with your smartphone.

  • Choose a product photography app. Go to the App Store on your phone and download an editing app for product photos. Some smartphone photographers prefer mobile apps like Lightroom or Snapseed, others prefer photo editing software for their desktops. 
  • Open up your editing app. Choose the image you want to prepare for your online store. Most images need a little tweaking to truly make them shine. 
  • Use the app to make a few basic edits. These include brightness, contrast, sharpness, highlights/shadows, and white balance. Don’t be tempted by filters, borders, tints, and oversaturation. Your goal is to make your product look amazing and make it stand out. Try to make it look as close to what the product looks like in real life. 
  • Save presets. After you edit your first photo, save the settings as a preset so you can apply the same adjustments to other photos from your shoot. While presets help you save time, make sure to check each image after applying the present to see if there are any additional tweaks for you to make. 
  • Apply a white layer background. Remove any blemishes or creases from your background by replacing your background with a white layer. Since you took photos on a white background, it’ll be easy to isolate the product and add a layer. 

Once your product image is looking clean, crisp, and beautiful, add it to your Shopify store and put your hard work to use!

5 best apps for product photography

Choosing the right editing apps is an important part of mastering product photography with a smartphone. Many come with an in-app editor, but there are plenty of third-party apps that give you everything you need to make your product stand out. 

Some of the top-rated product photo app options are: 

1. Lightroom

Available for: iOS and Android

Price: Free

Some would say Adobe Lightroom is the best app for product photography on the market. It features easy-to-use tools like sliders and presets to create photos that look exactly how you want them. Lightroom is also a good option if you plan to edit photos on your computer. You can start on mobile, web, or desktop, and when you make edits, they will be automatically applied across devices.

If you want to get the most out of Lightroom, you can sign up for the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan, which includes the photo editing app for desktop, mobile, and web, plus the latest version of Photoshop for $9.99 per month. 

2. Adobe Photoshop Express

Available for: iOS, Android, and Windows 

Price: Free

You’ve probably heard of Adobe Photoshop and what it can do. With Photoshop Express, you get all of its great photo editing features right on your smartphone. You can take product photos from your phone or take them inside the app. Then easily adjust the hue, brightness, exposure, and contrast to create amazing photos for your store. 

3. Snapseed

Available for: iOS and Android

Price: Free

Snapseed is a free photography editing software owned by Google. The app brings the power of a professional computer editor to your phone, with many features to edit images in ways you’ll usually only find in expensive software. Beginner photographers also have more utility with Snapseed using Stacks, which lets you revert your edits to an earlier version and makes it easy to save settings and apply them. 

4. VSCO

Available for: iOS and Android

Price: Free

VSCO has all the basic editing tools such as exposure, contract, color balance, and more, letting you create incredible photos on the go. It’s a great product photo app to enhance images rather than overdo them and doubles as an effective Instagram tool with its huge library of filters and endless options to customize your photos. 

If you want to share your product photos on social media, you can use VSCO Grid. VSCO Grid is a publishing platform integrated into the app that lets you share your images on social media and email.

5. Camera+

Available for: iOS

Price: $2.99

Camera+ is a great option for both experienced and beginner smartphone photographers. You can use Camera+ not only as an editor but also as a camera for your product shoots. The product photography app lets you set exposure and focus and includes a stabilizer, timer, and more so it feels like you’re shooting with a high-quality DSLR camera lens. 

If you’re someone who prefers to edit photos on your computer, you can use Camera+ to capture product photos in RAW. This makes sure no information or data gets compressed and you can produce higher quality product images. 

Getting the most from your product photography

Learning how to take photos on an iPhone or Android seems hard at first, but after a few times behind the camera, you’ll become a pro for sure. With all of the above info, you’re well on your way to mastering product photography and selling more photos in your store.

Product photography FAQ

How can I take professional pictures at home with my iPhone?

  • Choose an iPhone 8 or newer.
  • Test third-party camera apps.
  • Use a white background for your setup.
  • Place your setup near a window with natural light. 
  • Hold down the viewfinder to lock focus.
  • Avoid zooming in on photos. 
  • Try different camera angles.
  • Use a photo editing app.

How do I take quality product photos?

  • Use a smartphone camera with 12 megapixels or more.
  • Shoot from a tripod to reduce camera shake.
  • Use natural light from a window.
  • Bounce light using a foam board to soften shadows.
  • Use a sweep or close-up shots to highlight product features. 
  • Shoot a variety of angles and images. 
Shopify Tutorial

10 Must Know Image Optimization Tips

May 4, 2021 , by 露露

This article is from Shopify, and was republished and shared through Elksourcing with the permission of Shopify.
Original link:https://www.shopify.com/blog/7412852-10-must-know-image-optimization-tips

If you run an online store, image optimization is an art that you want to master. From attracting shoppers perusing Google images to reducing site load time, image optimization is an important part of building a successful ecommerce website, since your product photography is a cornerstone of your online store.

What is image optimization?


Image optimization is about reducing the file size of your images as much as possible without sacrificing quality so that your page load times remain low. It’s also about image SEO. That is, getting your product images and decorative images to rank on Google and other image search engines.

Have the following questions ever left you scratching your head?

  • Why is it that when I do a Google image search, my product photos never show up?
  • Do I need to add alt attributes to my images?
  • What’s the difference between JPEG, GIF and PNG? When should I use one over another?

Today you’ll finally have answers because we’re diving deep into these questions and more.

Here’s how to optimize images for the web:

  • Name your images descriptively and in plain language.
  • Optimize your alt attributes carefully.
  • Choose your image dimensions and product angles wisely.
  • Reduce the file size of your images.
  • Choose the right file type.
  • Optimize your thumbnails.
  • Use image sitemaps.
  • Beware of decorative images.
  • Use caution when using content delivery networks (CDNs).
  • Test your images.

1. Name your images descriptively and in plain language

It’s really easy to blow through hundreds of product shots and keep the default file names your camera assigns.

When it comes to image SEO, it’s important to use relevant keywords to help your webpage rank on search engines. Creating descriptive, keyword-rich file names is crucial for image optimization. Search engines not only crawl the text on your webpage, they also crawl your image file names.

Take this image, for example.

You could use the generic name your camera assigned to the image (e.g. DCMIMAGE10.jpg). However, it would be much better to name the file 2012-Ford-Mustang-LX-Red.jpg.

Think about how your customers search for products on your website. What naming patterns do they use when they search? In the example above, car shoppers may search terms like:

  • 2012 Red Ford Mustang LX
  • Ford Mustang LX Red 2012
  • Red Ford Mustang LX 2012

Look at your website analytics to see what keyword patterns your customers follow. Determine the most common naming patterns they use and apply that formula to your image file naming process.

If you’re not going to get that data-driven, just be sure to use relevant, helpful keywords when naming your images (i.e. try to be descriptive).

2. Optimize your alt attributes carefully

Alt attributes are the text alternative to images when a browser can’t properly render them. They’re also used for web accessibility. Even when the image is rendered, if you hover over it, you will see the alt attribute text (depending on your browser settings).

The alt attribute also adds SEO value to your website. Adding appropriate alt attributes that include relevant keywords to the images on your website can help you rank better in the search engines. As a matter of fact, using alt attributes is probably the best way for your ecommerce products to show up in Google image and web search.

Let’s take a look at the source code of an alt attribute.

The number one priority when it comes to image optimization is to fill out each alt attribute for each product image on your site.

Here are some simple rules for alt attributes:

  • Describe your images in plain language, just like you did for your image file names.
  • If you sell products that have model numbers or serial numbers, use them in your alt attributes.
  • Don’t stuff your alt attributes full of keywords (e.g. alt=”ford mustang muscle car buy now cheap best price on sale”).
  • Don’t use alt attributes for decorative images. Search engines may penalize you for over optimization.

Finally, always do a sanity check from time to time. View the source of your webpages and check to see if your alt attributes are filled out properly. You’ll be surprised by what you miss when you’re moving at the speed of entrepreneurship.

3. Choose your image dimensions and product angles wisely

It’s common practice to show multiple angles of your product. Going back to the Ford Mustang example, you wouldn’t want to show just one shot of the car, especially if you’re trying to sell it. It would be in your best interest to show shots of:

  • The interior.
  • The rear, especially that air spoiler.
  • The rims.
  • The engine… it is a Mustang after all.

The best way to capitalize on these extra photos is to fill out your alt attributes. And the way you would do that is by creating unique alt attributes for each product shot.

  • 2012-Ford-Mustang-LX-Red-Leather-Interior-Trim.jpg -> using the alt attribute of: alt=”2012 Ford Mustang LX Red Leather Interior Trim”
  • 2012-Ford-Mustang-LX-Red-Rear-View-Air-Spoiler.jpg -> using the alt attribute of: alt=”2012 Ford Mustang LX Red Rear View Air Spoiler”

The key here is to add descriptions to your base alt attribute so that potential searchers land on your website. If you do the extra work, Google will reward you with searchers.

A word of caution on providing larger images

Now you might want to provide larger views for your visitors, which can make for a great user experience, but be careful.

Whatever you do, don’t place the largest image on your webpage and simply shrink the dimensions via the source code. This will increase your page load time because of the larger file size associated with the image.

Instead, make it a smaller image and provide the option to view a larger image in a pop-up or on a separate webpage. Tip: Learn how to make product images zoomable in your theme using jQuery image zoom.

4. Reduce the file size of your images

Consider this:

  • Nearly 50% of consumers won’t even wait 3 seconds for an ecommerce site to load.
  • …and, globally, the average page load time is actually increasing.
  • Amazon found that if their pages were to slow down by just one second, they would lose $1.6 billion a year.
  • Google uses page load time as a ranking factor in their algorithm.

So, if you have images that slowly “drool” down the screen and take over 15 seconds to load? Well, you can kiss that prospective customer goodbye!

So, what can you do?

When a customer arrives on your site, it can take a while to load everything, depending on how large your files are. The larger the file sizes, the longer it takes a webpage to load. (Note: If you’re a Shopify merchant, we automatically compress images, so this shouldn’t be an issue for you.)

If you can decrease the size of the image files on your webpage and increase page load speed, less people who visit your site will click away.

One way you can reduce image file size is by using the “Save for Web” command in Adobe Photoshop. When using this command, you want to adjust the image to the lowest file size possible while keeping an eye out for image quality.

  • Quality: Find this in the top, right-hand corner (i.e. 70).
  • File format: Find this in the top, right-hand corner (i.e. JPEG).
  • Optimization: Find this checkbox in the top, right-hand corner (i.e. Optimized).
  • Color: Find this checkbox in the top, right-hand corner (i.e. Convert to sRBG).
  • Downsizing and sharpening: Find this in the bottom, right-hand corner (i.e. W: and H:).
  • Expected file size: Find this in the bottom, left-hand corner (i.e. 136.7K).

You can also opt to use “Export As”.

How to optimize images without Photoshop

If you don’t have Adobe Photoshop, there are numerous online tools you can use for image editing. Adobe even has a free image editing application for smartphones and tablets, Photoshop Express. This tool doesn’t have all of the capabilities of the desktop version of Adobe Photoshop, but it covers all the basics of image editing and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

Other impressive online image editing tools are:

  • PicMonkey has been described by experts as a “staggeringly great photo editing tool”.
  • PIXLR is super user-friendly and comes with a 100% free app for your smartphone, so you can edit on the go.
  • Canva is another fairly advanced online image editor.

Finally, there is always GIMP. GIMP is an open-source, free image editing software application that can be run on Windows, Mac or Linux. It can do everything Photoshop can do, but tends to be a bit clunkier. But for a free image editing application, you can’t beat it.

How large should image files be?

For ecommerce images, a good rule of thumb is to try to keep your image file size below 70 kb. That can be difficult at times, especially for larger images.

5. Choose the right file type

There are three common file types that are used to post images to the web: JPEG, GIF, and PNG.

Let’s look at the three file types and how they affect the same image:

JPEG (or .jpg) images are somewhat of an old file type. JPEG has become the de facto standard image of the Internet. JPEG images can be compressed considerably, which results in quality images with small file sizes. In the image above, the JPEG format allows decent quality at a low file size.

GIF (.gif) images are lower quality than JPEG images and are used for more simplistic images, such as icons and decorative images. GIFs also support animation, as I’m sure you know.

Regarding image optimization, GIFs are great for those plain, simple images on a webpage (which include just a few colors). But for complex images and photos, GIFs are not always as attractive. This is especially true for large images.

We can get away with using GIF in the MacBook image above because the photo is small enough that a GIF works well.

PNG images are becoming more popular as an alternative to GIFs. PNGs support many more colors than GIFs and they don’t degrade over time with re-saves, like JPEGs do. Even though the PNG file type is starting to be used more often, the file sizes can still be much larger than JPEG images.

Notice how the PNG-24 image is over three times larger in file size than the PNG-8. This is why you need to be very careful with PNGs.

Here’s an extreme example, where the image file size has been held constant at 24 kb for all three file types:

As you can see, JPEG is the clear winner here. GIFs and PNGs must degrade in quality in order to remain at the same low file size.

Here are some tips to remember when choosing file types:

  • In most cases in ecommerce, JPEGs will be your best bet. They provide the best quality for the smallest file size.
  • Never use GIFs for large product images. The file size will be very large and there is no good way to reduce it. Use GIFs for thumbnails and decorative images only.
  • PNGs can be a good alternative to both JPEGs and GIFS. If you are only able to get product photos in PNG format, try using PNG-8 over PNG-24. PNGs excel as simple decorative images because of their extremely small file size.

Most image editing software can save images to any of the file formats discussed above.

6. Optimize your thumbnails

Many ecommerce sites will use thumbnail images, especially on category pages. They quickly showcase products without taking up too much real estate.

Thumbnails are great, but be careful; they can be a silent killer. The victim? Your page load speeds. Thumbnails are usually presented at critical points during the shopping process. If they are preventing your category pages from loading quickly, you could lose a potential customer. (Note: Shopify merchants don’t have to worry about thumbnail optimization as we take care of that for you.)

So, what can you do?

  • Make your thumbnail file sizes as small as possible. It may be worth letting quality slide in favor of a lower file size here. Remember, the cumulative impact of your thumbnails will have a huge impact on your page load time.
  • Vary your alt attribute text as to not duplicate text that you would use for the bigger versions of the same image. As a matter of fact, make your alt text wildly different. The last thing you want is the thumbnail being indexed instead of the larger image. A case could be made to leave out the alt text entirely.

7. Use image sitemaps

If your site uses Javascript galleries, image pop-ups or other “flashy” ways to improve the overall shopping experience, image sitemaps will help get your images noticed by Google.

Web crawlers can’t crawl images that are not called out specifically in the webpage source code. So, in order to let crawlers know about unidentified images, you must list their location in an image sitemap.

You can insert the following line in your robots.txt file, showing the path to your sitemap:

Sitemap: http://example.com/sitemap_location.xml

Or you can submit the sitemap to Google using the Search Console.

Google has many guidelines for image publishing, which may help your website rank higher on SERPs. In addition, you can use Google sitemaps to give Google more information about the images on your website, which can help Google find more of your images than it would on its own.

Using sitemaps doesn’t guarantee that your images will get indexed by Google, but it’s certainly a positive step towards image SEO. Google Webmaster Tools has many suggestions for correctly formatting your sitemap.

It is important for you to add specific tags for all of your images. You can also create a separate sitemap to list images exclusively. What’s important is to add all the necessary information, while using specific tags, to any sitemaps you have or will create. Follow these guidelines that Google suggests when creating a sitemap with image information.

8. Beware of decorative images

Websites often have an assortment of decorative images, such as background images, buttons and borders. Anything non-product related can likely be considered a decorative image.

Although decorative images can add a lot of aesthetic appeal to a webpage, they can result in a large combined file size and slow load times. Therefore, you might want to consider taking a closer look at your decorative images so they won’t impair your website’s ability to convert visitors into customers.

You want to check the file sizes of all the decorative images on your site and use a template that minimizes file sizes.

Here are some tips for reducing the file sizes of your decorative images:

  • For images that make up borders or simple patterns, make them PNG-8 or GIFs. You can create good looking images that are only a few hundred bytes in size.
  • If possible, use CSS to create colored areas instead of using images. Use CSS styling as much as possible to replace any decorative images.
  • Take a close look at that large wallpaper-style background image. Those can be huge files. Shrink them down as much as possible without ruining the image quality.

One trick you can use to eat away at your background image size is to cut out the middle of the background image, and make it a flat color or even transparent. This can decrease the file size substantially.

9. Use caution when using content delivery networks (CDNs)

Shopify merchants don’t really have to worry about this since we’re a hosted solution, but others should pay close attention. Content delivery networks (CDNs) are a go-to place to host images and other media files. They can increase your page load speeds and help solve bandwidth issues.

The one drawback is when it comes to backlinks. As you may know, backlinks are critical for SEO and the more backlinks you have, the better your site does in the search engines.

By placing your images on a CDN, you are most likely removing the image from your domain and placing it on the domain of the CDN. So when someone links to your image, they are actually linking to the CDN domain.

Therefore, the best practices are:

  • Just because something is “trendy” doesn’t mean you should follow it like a sheep. Determine if it is really the best move for your business first.
  • If your website is doing tons of business every month, then a CDN is most likely a good idea since it can help solve bandwidth issues.
  • If your site only gets thousands of visitors a day right now, chances are your current hosting situation can handle the load.

There are ways around the image SEO issues associated with CDNs, but be sure to have a professional help you strategize your move first.

10. Test your images

The entire point of optimizing your images is to help increase your bottom-line. We’ve talked about reducing file sizes and getting the search engines to index your images, but what about testing images to see what converts to more customers?

  • Test the number of product images per page: Since load times are an issue for some non-hosted ecommerce sites, you may find that reducing the number of images on a page will increase click through rates and sales. It’s also possible that providing a lot of images per page will improve the user experience and lead to more sales. The only way to find this out is to test it.
  • Test what angles your customers prefer: You may see an increase in customer loyalty by providing the views your customers want to see. A great way to figure this out is to survey your customers about what they liked the most when viewing your product shots. Surveying and talking to your customers is a great habit to get into, in general. Still, verify by testing.
  • Test how many product listings you should have on category pages: 10, 20, 100 products? Test the number of products you list on category pages to see what works best for your customers.

Keeping beautiful photos functional

Now questions about your ecommerce images won’t leave you tossing and turning for hours.

You know some image SEO strategies to get your product photos into Google image search results. You know how to fully leverage alt attributes. You know the difference between file types and when to choose each option.

Still, image optimization is complex and we’ve just scratched the surface, so feel free to leave any questions you might have in the comments below.