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Many people often talk about the strategies to implement into your content marketing but they fail to outline the elements you should be avoiding. I like to focus on both because from my experience, some people have an easier time following the DONT’s instead of the DO’s. Anyway, Google is changing things around quickly so it’s important we know what to focus on. For example, what factors used to matter several years back no longer matter as much because the search algorithm has changed. There is more emphasis on quality and increasing the user experience. If you view Google’s writing guidelines, you’ve noticed they made tweaks outlining the importance of quality, creative, formatting, and keyword usage. Next,

There is so much content being published daily that tries to answer content quality questions, with every blogger providing their own insight. Personally, I find too much information can be very confusing so I’ve decided to narrow it down, outlining the MOST important marketing blunders made by bloggers.

Let’s jump right in…

BlackHat SEO Practice

If you want to succeed online, then it’s important you know the link building strategies to avoid. If you think Google hasn’t caught on, you’re completely wrong, because the recent Panda and Penguin updates were aimed at bloggers trying to manipulate the SERP’s. For example, in the last 4 years, we’ve seen the following…

• Bulk link building
• Spin content
• Duplicate content
• PBN’s (private blog networks)
• Buying links

This has destroyed the quality of search results and decreased the user experience. Google gained popularity by providing searchers the type of content that is unique, providing a complete solution. Through manipulative strategies, affiliate websites have been able to outrank value adding content blogs, destroying the overall experience. Whatever you do, stay away from “blackhat” SEO and focus on a natural link building process. You’ll do much better in the long run because Google is always tweaking the SERP’s to crack down on SPAM sites.

Fake Followers

Social media is changing the way people interact online. At one point, it would take months for content to go viral, but now it takes minutes. The problem is many bloggers think the more people you have following you, the better for your content marketing but they couldn’t be more wrong. It all depends on the quality of followers you have so DON’T waste your money purchasing “fake followers” because you’ll be doing more harm than good. Next, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ understand this is becoming a major problem and will ban your account permanently. Going forward, you’ll be restricted from logging into their platform and you’ll lose a vital source of relevant traffic.

Low Quality Content

One of the biggest Internet marketing mistakes people are making, low quality content will destroy your website. We are in a time where it’s about frequency and quality combined together. Google introduced a freshness update to help searchers find trending content but they’ve put greater emphasis on quality at the same time. Why? Simple…

First, up-to date information will ensure people find the most trending content available, increasing the user experience. Google has succeeded as a search engine because they will able to connect people with the MOST relevant information. Next, with the influx in websites all competing for traffic, something needs to differentiate them all, other than websites and a link building campaign. If you want to stand out compared to your competitor, then focus on quality going forward.

Lack of Passion

One factor that differentiates people who succeed online compared to those who’ve failed is “passion”. You have to be passionate about the industry you’re in or you’ll give up without putting 100% going forward. You have to remember the business of online marketing is very difficult and there are going to be times you don’t make money, attract a following, and feel like you’re making progress, but it’s your passion that will keep you pushing forward. Here’s something the late Steve Jobs said about passion…

There are going to be times you’ll want to give up and many people do because it’s the obvious and easiest thing to do. However, it’s the insane ones who keep pushing forward because they’re crazy about the business they’re involved in. If you want to succeed, then you’ll have to be crazy about your niche so you keep pushing forward when everyone else is telling you to give up.

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Marketing plans for businesses usually start with the assumption that the owner has a healthy lead list and a thriving website. What happens if you don’t meet these commonly assumed standards? Chances are, you’re going to end up reading through a list of tips that don’t apply to your brand.

We want to shift the perspective for new business owners just like you. Today we are going to look at five tips you can start using today to grow your audience pre-launch. The topics include:
1.Creating customer personas
2.Developing a “Coming Soon” page
3.Writing guest posts and working with influencers
4.Engaging with consumers on social media

Let’s dive in!

Identify Your Target Audience

Before you can build your audience, you have to understand who you’re targeting. You have to deliver marketing material and products to consumers that understand the problem you hope to solve, and are currently looking for a solution to the problem, as mentioned earlier.

Let’s say you plan on starting an eCommerce storefront that sells computer parts. Do you think you would target consumers who generally don’t use computers, and instead rely solely on their smart device? The answer is no. You want to find people that have an interest in building computers and are looking for an affordable, high-quality parts vendor.

There are multiple ways you can create customer personas that represent your target audience. In essence, a customer persona sheet is a chart that identifies the goals, pain points, and personality traits of your target audience. Below is an example of a customer sheet for a technology-themed business.

You can find information out about your audience by searching social media groups within your niche. Read the posts and comments from the general audience, and you’ll learn more about what they expect from products or services in your industry.

Additionally, you can add Google Analytics to WordPress and view the traffic of your “coming soon” page and learn more about your target audience using on-site figures. We are going to dive into coming soon pages and how they can help grow your audience next.

Create a Coming Soon Page

A coming soon page is a great way to grow your audience before your site officially launches. Business owners and bloggers using these types of early access pages to inform curious customers, grow their lead list and improve their SEO ranking pre-launch.

The sooner your site is online and indexed, even if it’s just a coming soon page, the better chance you have of getting recognized and rising in rank.

Additionally, you can use this opportunity to ask consumers that land on your page to sign up for your email list for future updates. When you use this tactic to grow your business, you’ll see that most industries have a built-in audience, you have to create products that appeal to the correct audience.

Luckily, creating a coming soon page is simple when you use a WordPress plugin like SeedProd. SeedProd is known as one of the best tools for small business owners who want to grow their audience pre-launch.

You can create customized pages with information your target audience would find relevant, such as launch day and initial products. Here’s a sample coming soon page that is bound to draw in a broad audience before launch day.

Engage with Users on Social Media

If you want to build a large following, you have to show the community that you’re willing to talk. One of the best ways to personally reach out to users pre-launch is with your social media channels. At this time, you probably don’t have a large following.

However, the more you are willing to post thoughtful discussion topics, polls, and respond to consumers that ask questions, the more likely people will engage with your brand once you go live.

You should consider hosting a giveaway or caption contest if you want to get people involved early in the development cycle. There’s nothing like a prize to get people engaged with your business.

There are plenty of good prizes to give away, but think carefully about your decision before you launch your first contest. Prizes like Amazon gift cards are likely to cause a surge in your traffic and followers, which is excellent, but this will not result in long-term engagement. People will likely enter your contest because they are interested in free Amazon cash, not your product or service.

If you want to build your audience early with a contest, offer something that will help your target audience. Let’s revisit the example we used earlier. The owner of a computer parts website would likely create a contest where the winner gets a new graphics card. The number of participants will drop, but the leads who entered are genuinely interested in what you’re offering.

Work with Influencers

Influencers are internet personalities that are wildly popular on channels like YouTube or Instagram, as well as private blogs. Working with these individuals is a great way to expose your brand to a broad audience before your site goes live.

There are two ways to work with influencers this early in development. First, you could offer to write guest posts for blogs within your niche. In your author bio, you can include a link to your coming soon page and potential home page.

Finding partners willing to accept your guest posts is no easy feat. Most publications and online influencers have strict rules and regulations to follow, especially as it pertains to the type of content you’re submitting. Make sure that you’re always offering content that provides valuable information to readers, and establishes you as an authority in your industry.

You could also work with YouTube or Instagram influencers by sponsoring one of their videos. Allow the internet personalities to mention your business, what you hope to solve, and your website. Consumers viewing this content will see your site, and end up on your home page.

Conclusion

There are plenty of ways to grow your audience before you launch your website. The most important lesson you should take away from this piece is your target audience is responsible for the success of your business. You have to work hard to change their lives positively and solve a problem that no one else has adequately addressed.

As your business grows, you’ll likely create new products or features. As long as you are keeping an eye on your target audience through engagement and analytic examination, you’ll have no problems growing your business well beyond the day your site goes live.

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It can be challenging to focus on vital things like your health when you are in the midst of building a business. Many founders and startups forget about their mental health because they want to make everything perfect, no matter what it takes. 

We constantly hear about mental health in the news. People are depressed, anxious, and not happy with their life. Because of this, we must seriously tackle this problem and take action. Depression, anxiety, and mood disorders provoke burnout and become a toxic element within a company’s culture.  

Here are 8 keys to managing your mental health when starting a business:

1. Your Mind & Body Are Interconnected

Mental, emotional, and physical health are deeply interconnected. Just as mental health problems can lead to alcohol and substance abuse, lack of exercise or a poor diet can cause depression and loss of focus. Gaining ten extra pounds is just as real for a founder when starting a business as a freshman because of the stress due to tests and exams. 

2. Why Priorities Are Better Than Your Objectives?

As a rule, founders are wholly devoted to their calendars and task lists. Unfortunately, the task list is just a reminder of the myriad of tasks that still need to be done. For most of us, the list of tasks is endless. This is an excellent recipe for an unbearable and uncontrollable load for your psyche. 

The definition of anxiety is when we feel our ability to achieve results is suppressed by current tasks. This is inevitable when the assignments are poorly formulated, too large, or don’t have a number.

Instead of a list of tasks, switch to a list of priorities for the day, which includes only urgent and important tasks at the same time. It may be more challenging to complete these tasks, but the satisfaction of completing them will not be compared with anything.

3. Vacation is Important

Founders need to consciously take a vacation with a digital detox to disconnect from work. If the founder cannot disconnect on his own even during the holidays, try traveling where it is impossible to be in touch regularly. Burnout is rarely suspected due to failures in parsing failed startups, but the trained eye will often find its effect on the decline of the company.

As a rule, people in business spontaneously apply the following strategies to solve their psychological problems:

• Ignoring all issues as if they did not exist at all.
• Deferring their decisions.
• Attempts to replace the search for the right solution with half measures or false steps (endless discussion of problems with relatives and friends, visits to psychics and sorcerers, drunkenness, drugs, gambling).

“As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” – Maya Angelou

4. Meditation is The Right Source for New Ideas

The founders must include physical activity in their routine and monitor their diet. Yoga, meditation, or breathing practices are beneficial. Take time to try these different practices.

Write about what you are grateful for (it helps you to remain appreciative), why you feel stressed (the solution is more natural when you pour problems onto paper), how you grew up in a day (small victories) and then make a to-do list. This helps to focus and find balance if you like to meditate.

5. The Wrong Diet May Destroy You 

With a wave of new products, foods, drinks, nootropics, it is easier than ever to include vital vitamins and nutrients in your diet. Try foods that are full of nutrients and have minimal side effects.

6. Social Cooperation and Health

Some of you are so lost in your projects that you forget about life outside of the business. Find time for friends, loved ones, children, and even animals. Remember, it is not the amount of time, it’s the quality. 

Understand your “hot” and “cold” zones at work. By doing so, you can plan your day to work in a convenient way for you. Make sure to also allocate time for social activities. Professionals always know how to organize any business or plan by working efficiently and not just a lot.

“The only person who can pull me down is myself, and I’m not going to let myself pull me down anymore.” – C. Joybell C.

7. Always Be Informed to Avoid Mental Health Issues

Learn about signs of depression and burnout. Drowning people do not wave their hands and do not shout for help – they silently go underwater. Only trained rescuers usually notice trouble. The same thing happens with depression, as these people don’t usually spend time in endless complaints or sadness.

The following symptoms should alert you:

• A constant feeling of pessimism.
• Sad or anxious mood.
• Changes in behavior or loss of interest in activities that previously brought pleasure.
• Changes in diet and meal times.
• Changes in sleep time.
• Irritability.

8. Change Your Activities

If you’re used to working with what’s called your head, it will be beneficial for you to go to the gym. While it’s not always possible to be at the gym, it will be enough to water the flowers, move the chairs, or take a quick step along the corridor. It is essential to switch from one activity to another whenever you feel that stress is returning. If stress has caught you on the bus, get off at the nearest stop and walk for 10-15 minutes.

Creating a business is a difficult task because of the mental, physical, and emotional toll it can take on you. At the same time, our ecosystem is toxic, and dozens of factors contribute to making building a company even more difficult. There are real steps that each of you can take to begin eliminating this toxicity.

How do you manage your mental health and ensure you don’t overly stress? Share your ideas with us below!

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You're reading Mum’s the Word: How Mantra Meditation Can Help When You’re Expecting, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you're enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

Your body is preparing for motherhood; an incredibly rewarding but physically demanding adventure. If you find yourself in a maelstrom of mood swings –  amidst the cramping, soreness, nausea, cravings and other palpable changes that characterise the experience of early pregnancy – you are not alone. 

People who have prior experience of this epic journey and those who are embarking on their first pregnancy alike will recognise the resplendent rarity of those moments where you feel truly at peace. They are all too fleeting, when you are usually caught between the rock of your bodily discomfort and the hard place of your pre-birth to-do list. 

Expectant parents who integrate meditation into this intensely vibrant period reap multiple rewards. These range from tranquility on tap, to the host of developmental benefits that a calmer host nervous system offers the baby. Mantra-based meditation is one of the easiest types of meditation to take up, making it eminently suited to this brilliant but busy time. 

Meditation: a counterintuitive catalyst for calm 

In pregnancy, just like the rest of life, we can find ourselves wading stoically through the sands of time that stretch between each mini oasis of calm we experience. It is easy to forget that it is possible to take steps, like practicing meditation, to actively increase our access to serenity. 

Pregnancy is a totalistic lifestyle change. It can feel overwhelmingly full of unfamiliar sensations, guidelines to follow and new skills to learn. Adding an extra activity to your day-to-day repertoire may feel counterintuitive. Likewise, you might feel that there is something off-beat about taking time out of your new-parent marathon – preparing the world around you for the new arrival growing inside you – to focus on your own inner world. 

However – when your me-time activity is mantra-based meditation – you can benefit your growing baby exponentially, at the same time as carving out some grounding for your frazzled but excited self. Pregnant people who make time for regular meditation effect powerful changes to the functioning of the body, boosting the healthy development of the passenger(s) within. 

Explore alternatives to “avoiding stress”

The injunction to avoid stress is one of the most impossible tasks dressed up as advice with which our society traditionally bombards pregnant people, as well as those who are trying to conceive. In reality, stress is inevitable, particularly when your existence involves aggregating your regular financial and professional pressures with the sense of responsibility parenthood entails, all at the same time as taking every possible measure to safeguard the health of your developing baby. 

Rather than cautioning people to avoid stress – an endeavor destined to become a stressor itself, by generating a perpetual sensation of failing – a much more holistic approach would be to make everybody aware of protective stress-management techniques like meditation. Knowing that you can defend yourself and your baby against the ill-effects of any stress that you experience will empower you to live your most fulfilled life throughout your pregnancy. 

Prenatal stress: managing associated risks 

The link between prenatal stress and fetal development is not yet fully understood, but is believed to relate primarily to the transmission of stress-related hormones from mother to baby, in the womb. 

When we are stressed, our bodies enter a primal state called “fight or flight” mode, producing the stress hormones, called neophrenine and cortisol. These set the heart pumping faster and more blood flowing to the muscles, to ready the body to defend itself from danger. Unfortunately, in our contemporary, western mode existence, the most dangerous thing about nearly all situations that precipitate stress is actually “fight or flight” mode itself, and the long-term health risks of entering this hyper vigilant, tensed-up state. 

People who experience stress regularly become predisposed to develop a multitude of associated health problems. Constantly flowing cortisol impacts our breathing, circulation, and the mechanisms by which our bodies process impurities and fight off infections. The stress hormone can also pass from mother to baby via the placenta – an organ that develops in the uterus during pregnancy in order to pass oxygen and nutrients to the growing baby. 

Learning an effective technique to manage stress during pregnancy is therefore one of the most beneficial things an expectant mother can do to reduce the likelihood of the baby developing preventable health problems. High levels of stress not only diminish the nourishing capabilities of the host body, but also heighten the risk of negative birth outcomes, such as premature delivery and low birthweight. Circumnavigating the acute stress state and thereby reducing levels of cortisol in the body will help create the most protective possible atmosphere for the gestating fetus. 

Meditating for two: the protective effects of mediation

Everybody who practices it will have different perceptions of the ways that meditation has made a positive impact to their pregnancy. For people who are just getting started, some of the principal benefits of meditating in pregnancy include: 

Boosting your mood. Mantra-based meditation not only regulates the nervous system, reducing the toxic effects of stress, it also boosts the production of endorphins, which reduce pain and boost happiness. Mums-to-be who meditate are happier, more of the time, and this has a direct impact on fetal development. Across the potentially emotionally turbulent trajectory of your pregnancy, your sustained contentment will transfer a sense of stability and wellbeing to your offspring in the womb.  

Priming the body to nourish the baby consistently. Calming the nervous system through meditation allows the uterine system to function optimally. Meditation helps reduce the release of adrenaline and noradrenaline that accompanies stress, which means that blood flow around the body is more consistent. A developing baby can therefore benefit from a more streamlined supply of nutrients and oxygen than a stressed system would allow.

Making approaching birth easier. It is worth clarifying that mediation itself is not a birthing technique. However, the peace of mind and body that it lends expectant mothers is an excellent backdrop against which to learn the birthing techniques of your choice, helping you waddle towards your due date with confidence. 

Mantra-based meditation: the easiest type to take up

There are so many different types of meditation that it is easy to get lost in a maze of contradictory information when trying to choose the best type for you. All types of meditation have their benefits. However, not all types are necessarily equally synergistic with the physical demands of pregnancy. Sitting still for ten days on a Vipassana meditation retreat, for example, helps a person develop new defences against feeling buffeted by the eventualities of life. But it can be somatically gruelling and is therefore not generally recommended for people past the seventh month of their pregnancy. 

It is highly recommended that you seek guidance from an experienced meditation teacher as you embark on your practice rather than going solo, and also discuss your plans with your medical care team. 

Practicing mantra meditation quickly becomes second nature. Once you’re equipped with your own personal Sanskrit mantra, carefully selected for you by learned guides, you’re ready to get started. Practicing generally involves two twenty-minute sessions per day, in which you silently repeat your mantra in your mind. You can do this anytime, anywhere, allowing this process to work profound alchemical changes to your emotions at the same time as it releases the tension from your nervous system. 

You’ll feel the benefits quickly. When you’re taking up meditation during pregnancy, the last thing you need is to spend your precious self-care time feeling confused about whether you’re doing it right, or find yourself wondering whether it’s working. Rather than questioning their presence, let your mantra be your anchor as you cruise through the cocophanies of thoughts that can arise during your practice. People who take up mantra-meditation in pregnancy regularly report their surprise regarding the speed with which they start noticing dynamic changes taking place within their mindsets, bodies and lives.

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Rosalind Stone is a wordsmith and editrix with a passion for exploring the emotions that can be evoked through wordcraft, and their ripple effects into our collective consciousness. She believes that meditation can empower everybody to unlock new facets of their personal potential, and currently writes to help more people access its benefits by increasing awareness of Beeja meditation.

You've read Mum’s the Word: How Mantra Meditation Can Help When You’re Expecting, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you've enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

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When temperatures fall below freezing and everything is covered in ice, nothing compares to warming up in the comfort of your own home. However, keeping your home warm can be a little trickier this year as forecasters with the 2020 “Farmers’ Almanac” are predicting a particularly harsh winter.

Dubbed a “Polar Coaster”, it’s expected to bring fluctuating temperatures and frequent blasts of ice, sleet, and snow. Plus, the harshest winter weather could arrive earlier than normal.

Start keeping your home warm by taking these steps throughout the fall:

Plug up any air leaks

Air leaks in caulk or weather stripping allow frigid air to enter your house and warm air to leak out. You can save between 5% and 10% on your energy bill by simply plugging these leaks.

While the weather is still warm, check your weather stripping by closing doors and windows onto a sheet of paper. The stripping needs replacement if it slides easily around the paper. Find other air leaks in the home by holding a lit candle around doors, window frames, and wire holes. A flickering flame means you need to insulate the area.

For more high-tech, accurate results, consider using an air leak detector. Once the device is turned on, point it toward the locations where leaks are suspected. A light emanating from the device will scan the area.

If a leak exists, it’ll turn blue if the air is cold and red if the air is warm. If no leaks are detected, the light won’t change colors at all.

Insulate anything and everything

People often avoid insulating their homes because they imagine wrestling with huge pieces of itchy, pink material. Fortunately, insulation has gotten a lot easier to work with. It’s still just as crucial for keeping your home comfortable and efficient.

Look for areas without adequate insulation, starting with the attic, garage, and any unfinished spaces. Use cellulose and spray in those areas. They provide a superior thermal barrier between your home and the worst winter weather.

See Also: 5 Ways to Become More Energy Efficient with Your Heating System

Show some love to your furnace

A pleasant home requires a fully functioning furnace. Before you have to rely on it daily, a certified HVAC technician should inspect the furnace and give it a tuneup. This affordable service helps avoid breakdowns, improves energy efficiency, and fulfills the requirements of the warranty.

If the furnace is past its prime, have a replacement installed immediately. You want everything to be up and running before the first cold night of the year.

Give the roof a close inspection

Heat travels upward and if your roof is full of holes, it’s allowing valuable heated air to drift outside. Inspect every inch of the roof for gaps, cracks and leaks, particularly around vents, chimneys, and valleys. Looking for missing, curled or damaged shingles is also important. Unused antennas or satellite dishes can damage your roof in a strong storm, so consider removing them while you’re already up there.

See Also: Roofing Inspection Checklist for Homeowners

Get serious about gutters

Gutters divert water away from your foundation which is just as important in the winter when you face melting snowfall and freezing water expansion. Take action before the leaves start to fall.

Clean the gutters thoroughly. Then, consider installing mesh guards to keep the next round of leaves out. Inspect the downspouts and install extenders as needed. If anything is seriously damaged, replace it in the fall when the work is easy to do.

Prepare your whole lawn

Unfortunately, landscaping doesn’t stop when the summer ends. Even when the grass stops growing taller, the roots are still growing deeper, making fall the ideal time to fertilize. Even more importantly, overgrown trees can be a serious liability in the winter if limbs fall into power lines and leave your furnace disabled. Hire an arborist to preemptively remove anything that could put your power at risk.

Don’t forget to decorate

A “warm” home is just as much about the atmosphere as the temperature. Even if we have an early, aggressive winter, the season is peppered with exciting holidays, starting with Halloween and carrying all the way through Super Bowl Sunday. If you feel inclined, decorate inside and out. It won’t necessarily keep the cold air out, but it will help turn your home into an inviting place for family and friends to gather.

The post 7 Steps to Keep Your Home Warm When the Weather Outside Is Frightful appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

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Do you want to create an online store? Creating an online store is pretty easy these days, thanks to platforms like Shopify. Shopify offers an easy-to-use web-based website builder, marketing and SEO features, eCommerce analytics, and more—just about everything you need to start an online store.

But, if you want your online store to be successful, it takes more than just putting up a website.

Check out these 4 tips for creating your first Shopify store.

Choose a Niche and Define Your Target Audience

Before you start creating your Shopify store, you first need to decide what you’re going to sell and who your target audience is. Choosing a niche for your online store will give it more focus and it will be easier to market your store to your target audience.

For instance, if you sell pet products, makeup, and men’s watches, your online store will be all over the place and you’ll have multiple different target audiences. But, if you stick with one niche like pet products, your online store will be easier to manage and market to potential customers.

So, decide your niche and then figure out who your exact target audience is. For example, if you sell luxury pet products, the monthly income of your target audience will be higher. You need to work out these details so that you know as much about your target audience as possible.

To help you define your target audience in detail, fill out a buyer persona (also known as a customer avatar) template like the one from Digital Marketer below.

When you know exactly who you’re selling to, it’ll be much easier to encourage them to buy from you.

Build Your Shopify Store

Now, it’s time to actually create a website for your online store. The first step is to set up an account with Shopify. After creating your account, Shopify makes it easy to set up your store. Follow the steps they provide to name your store, add your products, set up payments, and more.

One of the most important steps is designing the look of your online store. The appearance of your online store is important. In fact, according to HubSpot, 38% of people will stop engaging with a website if the content/layout is unattractive.

So, if you want visitors to your online store to stick around and shop, your website needs to be visually-appealing. Luckily, Shopify makes this easy by providing a number of stunning free and paid themes you can use.

Choose a Shopify theme that works for your brand. For instance, the themes below are great for a minimalist look.

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After building your store, it’s time to add some extra features with Shopify apps.

Add More Power with Shopify Apps

Shopify apps are similar to WordPress plugins, some are free and some are paid. You can add Shopify apps to your store to help you drive more traffic to your site, provide a better customer experience, generate more sales, and much more.

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There are a number of Shopify apps you should get for your online store, here are a few of the best ones:

• Plug in SEO – This Shopify app helps you find SEO issues on your website so that you can increase traffic to your online store.
• WPForms – Your customers need a way to contact you. With WPForms you can create contact forms and other online forms for your online store.
• TrustPulse – Social proof is a way to build trust with online shoppers. TrustPulse is a social proof notifications app that displays real-time stats of activity on your website such as email signups and purchases.
• Facebook Live Chat – If you want your store to be successful, you need to provide great customer service. Facebook Live Chat lets you offer live chat to your customers via Facebook.

There are tons of other Shopify apps you can use to add more power to your store and each online store will require different features. Decide the features your Shopify store needs and choose your Shopify apps accordingly.

Promote Your Online Store

Once your online store is completed, it’s time to sit back and watch the traffic and the sales start rolling in, right? Not so fast! If you want a lot of people to check out your online store, they need to know it exists. So, you need to promote your online store.

If you’re just starting out though, you probably don’t want to spend a bunch of money on advertising. Don’t worry, there are a number of ways to promote your online store without breaking the bank.

For example, you can promote your online store on social media. Take a look at this Instagram post from Rhone, a Shopify store that sells activewear for men.

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The post includes a stunning shot of their activewear in action as well as relevant, branded hashtags.

There are a number of other ways to promote your online store. Consider creating an online contest. If you sell products on your online store, you probably have some good prizes to give away. You can also use blogging and guest posting to reach new audiences as well.

Over to You

That’s it! With these tips for creating your first Shopify store, you’re well on your way to running a successful business. So, if you’ve got a great idea for an online store, start building it today.