You’ve created your store on the Shopify platform, added products with well written titles and descriptions and awesome photos, and have begun driving traffic to your website. Hopefully you’re already seeing sales as a result of your efforts.
But… do you have all the information pages you need on your website to instill trust in your visitors? If not, here are eight pages you really need to have in order to provide as much information to your customers as possible:
- About Page
- Contact Page
- FAQs
- Shipping Information
- Return Policy
- Privacy Policy
- Terms and Conditions
- Customer Reviews or Testimonials
Let’s take a look at each page, and why it’s important.
About Page
An About page is a must-have page. Make it interesting! Tell your visitors why you started your business and how your store is different than other stores. Include photos or videos to make the page even more interesting.
For more information on creating an awesome About page, click Your About Page Is Important.
Contact Page
A contact page is one of the first pages a prospective customer is going to look for on your website. Visitors are going to want to know you are a “real” person with a “real” business. Make sure you have a Contact page, and make sure it’s easy to find. Include a link to this page in your top menu, sidebar menu, or footer menu – as these are the common places a visitor will look to find this page.
Your Contact page should include several pieces of information:
- Your email address
- Your mailing address
- Your phone number
- A contact form
- A link to your FAQ page
- Information regarding how quickly your visitors will hear back from you
Email Address
Make sure you are using a professional email address, one that uses your website URL. Here is a link to an article on how to do this – Quick Tip: A Professional Email Address Helps Convert More Customers.
You can also make your email address a clickable link if you’d like. Here’s an article that explains how to do this – Quick Tip: Make Your Email Address on Your Website a Link.
Mailing Address
If you have a physical address that you want customers to know about, make sure to use that address.
If you work from home, I strongly encourage you NOT to use your home address on your Contact page! Instead, purchase a post office box from your local post office and use that as your mailing address.
Phone Number
Again, if you have a physical location and want your customers to be able to call you there, use that phone number.
If you work from home, I recommend you use a Google Voice number instead of your home phone or cell phone. With a free Google Voice number, you can have that ring through to your home phone, cell phone, or both. Here’s an article with more information about Google Voice – Add a Free Phone Number to Your Store.
Social Media Links
If you’d like, you could also add links to the social media platforms you use. This allows your visitors to contact you via Facebook Messenger, as a direct message on Instagram and Pinterest, etc. TIP: Keep in mind that adding your social media links here will take your visitor OFF your store, and that might not be the action you want them to take.
Contact Form
Almost every Shopify theme has a built-in Contact Form that you can use on your Contact page. After you create the page, choose the “page.contact” template for that page. You won’t see the form in the visual editor space, but if you click the text editor button, you’ll see the code there.
Add any information you want to this page above the code for the contact form. For example, on the Contact page for my vintage shop, I have my address, phone number, hours and information entered above the actual contact form code. Here’s a link to see this example – Contact Us.
FAQs
A well-written FAQ page (Frequently Asked Questions) is a great way to answer your visitors questions without them having to contact you. This gives them a way to find immediate information and answers on their own.
When you create your FAQ page, you should consider writing it in Question and Answer format. I recommend adding formatting to make the questions and answers stand out. Even something as simple as applying the bold format to the questions will help that page be easier to read.
There are plenty of apps in the Shopify App Store for creating FAQ pages. The app I personally like the best is the Help Center app – here’s a link – Help Center App.
Shipping Information
Your Shipping Information page is also a crucial page to have on your website. Your visitors are going to want to know how much it costs to ship, where you ship to, and how long it takes for them to get their order.
Your Shipping Information page should include information about:
- Domestic and International shipping – your charges and length of time in transit
- Who your shipping carriers are
- Expedited shipping (if you offer it)
- Shipping damages
- How to track a package
Make sure you include information on how quickly you ship, and which shipping methods you use.
If you offer free shipping, be sure to include information about that as well.
Return Policy
Make sure you have a clearly written Return Policy page.
Explain which products you accept returns on, and which products you don’t (if that is the case).
Make it clear to your customers as to who pays for return shipping – does the customer pay this, or do you offer free returns?
Mention any exchange policy, refund policy or guarantee policy you have regarding returns.
Clearly state the process of how to return an item, and where the return should be sent.
TIP: You can use the built-in Shopify Return Policy generator to create your Return Policy page. Just make sure to read through that entire canned policy to ensure the policy is written the way you want it. You can access this policy from your Shopify Dashboard – click on Settings > Checkout and scroll to the bottom of that page. Once you edit the canned text, copy and paste it into your Return Policy page.
Privacy Policy
A Privacy Policy page is also very important to have. You’ll want to make sure your visitors know how you collect their information and what you do with it.
Your Privacy Policy page should also explain cookies and how they are used on your website.
TIP: You can use the built-in Shopify Privacy Policy generator to create your Privacy Policy page. You will definitely want to read through that text to be sure it includes all the information you want it to include, and that the information is accurate. Once you edit the canned text, copy and paste it into your Privacy Policy page.
Terms and Conditions
The Terms and Conditions page is another page you can generate using the built-in Shopify Terms and Conditions generator.
Make sure to read through the entire text and make changes as needed for your store.
Customer Reviews or Testimonials
While a Customer Reviews or Testimonials page isn’t exactly mandatory for your website, it can be a page to showcase your reviews gathered all on one page.
When visitors see reviews from verified customers, they will have more trust in your website, and in your business, and are more likely to purchase from you.
You probably are using an app for customer reviews on your store – and if you’re not, you should be! That app may or may not have the ability to create a recap of all your reviews onto one page, and it is something you’ll want to look into.
For example, I use the Shopify Product Reviews app along with the Stamped.io Product Reviews Add-on app on my vintage store. The add-on app has a widget that allows me to have all my reviews gathered together onto one page. You can see this page at Customer Reviews and Testimonials.
Helpful Tips…
- Creating Pages – If you are unsure how to create a page within your store, from your Shopify Dashboard, click on Online Store > Pages and then Create Page. Here’s the Shopify help page for more information – Pages Help Page.
- Formatting – Make sure to add formatting to your pages to help break up the text and to make it easier for visitors to find the information they are looking for. Adding headings, bullet lists, and graphics where appropriate can really make your information pages more interesting.
- Internal Links – Add links to your information pages to help your visitors find more information. For example, your FAQ page could link directly to your Shipping Information page or Return Policy page in the appropriate answers to questions. TIP: Internal links are also good for SEO.
- SEO Preview – Make sure the Search Engine Listing Preview for your pages shows the information you want it to show. You can find this area at the bottom of the page while creating the page in your Shopify Dashboard. The text that appears there should be interesting, descriptive using important keywords, and be compelling enough for people to want to click on it when they see it in a Google search.
If you don’t have all these information pages on your Shopify store, now’s a great time to add them!
These are all great tips! I have not set up the customer reviews for my store yet. I will be looking into that. Thanks.