What is a good Shopify conversion rate? It depends on your traffic mix, your industry, and your price point far more than on any benchmark you will find online. In this episode we break down the three step funnel from add to cart, to reaching checkout, to a completed purchase, plus the drop off numbers that show you where a store is actually losing sales.

Links Mentioned

• Baymard Institute (free ecommerce UX articles and research): https://baymard.com
• Blockify (block bot traffic by country or IP): https://apps.shopify.com/blockify
• Cloudflare: https://www.cloudflare.com
• Leighton's Shopify CRO audit checklist: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZV21GWwNNMWmnsU__hlw9Y-QVMNFY02qjrIjeeofGY8/edit?usp=sharing

Watch This Episode on YouTube

• https://youtu.be/X1Ea1du9vbo

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:20 The Ecommerce Growth Equation
• 3:06 How Conversion Rate and AOV Compound
• 4:45 Why Conversion Rate Is a Weird Number
• 6:34 Conversion Rate Is Always Relative
• 8:12 How Bots Skew Your Data
• 10:04 Blocking Bot Traffic
• 11:39 Cloudflare and Shopify
• 14:20 Do Bots Actually Hurt Sales?
• 15:19 The Hidden Cost of Bot Traffic
• 17:57 Themes, Navigation, and Basics
• 18:44 Baymard as a CRO Resource
• 20:24 The 100 Point Audit Checklist
• 23:11 Mobile Menus and Shop All Links
• 27:36 Free Shipping Bars and AOV
• 28:51 The Three Step Funnel Benchmark
• 31:01 Diagnosing Where Sales Leak
• 32:14 Improving Add to Cart Rate
• 33:31 When to A/B Test
• 35:40 How Much Data You Need
• 39:06 Wrapping Up

Book a Call

• Book a Call with Patrick: https://calendly.com/patrickriceco/strategy-call
• Book a Call with Leighton: https://cal.com/leightontaylor/discovery-call?utm_source=podcast

Work with Us

• Work with Patrick (SEO and Google Ads): https://patrickriceco.com/
• Work with Leighton (Shopify Store Builds, Migrations, & Ongoing Support): https://envision.io

You may notice that our content sometimes includes affiliate links or sponsored content. We may receive compensation for this type of content, which supports the work we do at no cost to you.

Patrick Rice started a Minecraft YouTube channel at 13 and made his first $3,000 online before he had ever heard of SEO. He walks Leighton through the whole path to running a Shopify SEO and Google Ads agency, including the client he lost to a migration that went sideways and the point where managing everything himself turned into a ceiling.

Links Mentioned

• E&R Business Consulting (Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn, Patrick's business coach): https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/
• Patrick's old Minecraft video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq51xW8pYqg

Watch This Episode on YouTube

• https://youtu.be/9bTCzlZG3zI

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:23 The Minecraft YouTube channel
• 3:35 Accidental link building
• 4:30 First SEO job at 18
• 7:27 How PRC started
• 9:15 Going independent too early
• 10:31 Four years as a freelancer
• 13:28 Knowing your agency numbers
• 15:38 Getting into Shopify SEO
• 17:06 The migration that cost a client
• 19:17 The cold email that landed
• 22:41 Referrals and LinkedIn
• 25:02 LinkedIn is saturated now
• 26:48 Hitting the growth ceiling
• 29:58 Ownership versus tasks
• 33:40 The hire who quit in 4 days
• 35:52 How much to document
• 38:30 Where AI fits now
• 40:17 Ads first, then SEO
• 41:45 Wrapping Up

Book a Call

• Book a Call with Patrick: https://calendly.com/patrickriceco/strategy-call
• Book a Call with Leighton: https://cal.com/leightontaylor/discovery-call?utm_source=podcast

Work with Us

• Work with Patrick (SEO and Google Ads): https://patrickriceco.com/
• Work with Leighton (Shopify Store Builds, Migrations, & Ongoing Support): https://envision.io

You may notice that our content sometimes includes affiliate links or sponsored content. We may receive compensation for this type of content, which supports the work we do at no cost to you.

Leighton started his first ecommerce business on Etsy while teaching English in China, then found Shopify in 2012 and turned freelance work into Envision. He ran the Shopify agency from Mexico, Ecuador, and Southeast Asia, then sold the house in 2020 and spent five and a half years working from a sailboat.

Patrick and Leighton dig into all of it, plus the hiring mistakes, QA systems, and priority questions that came with growing a Shopify agency remotely.

Links Mentioned

• Tropical MBA Podcast: https://tropicalmba.com/
• Dynamite Circle: https://dynamitecircle.com/
• Upwork (formerly oDesk): https://www.upwork.com/
• Notion: https://www.notion.com/
• The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060833459
• Leighton's weekly planning questions: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pIWzT0jesjhDvOLUpdMlLrD8lhgCEbrj31cl9jv1B_g/edit?usp=sharing

Watch This Episode on YouTube

• https://youtu.be/jCofHzKUavQ

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:48 Two Years Teaching in China
• 1:26 Wedding Invitations on Etsy
• 4:29 Discovering Shopify in 2012
• 6:13 Landing First Clients on Upwork
• 7:47 Why the Name Envision
• 9:32 Going Nomad: Mexico to Asia
• 12:00 Hiring Contractors and Scaling Pain
• 15:10 Documenting Systems and QA
• 20:47 Perfectionism or High Standards?
• 21:47 The Highest Leverage Task
• 24:27 The Monday Planning Ritual
• 28:46 Client Unit Economics and NCCM3
• 31:17 Becoming a Business Advisor
• 35:09 From Nursing School to a Sailboat
• 36:33 A Home Base in Florida
• 38:06 Wrapping Up

Book a Call

• Book a Call with Patrick: https://calendly.com/patrickriceco/strategy-call
• Book a Call with Leighton: https://cal.com/leightontaylor/discovery-call?utm_source=podcast

Work with Us

• Work with Patrick (SEO and Google Ads): https://patrickriceco.com/
• Work with Leighton (Shopify Store Builds, Migrations, & Ongoing Support): https://envision.io

You may notice that our content sometimes includes affiliate links or sponsored content. We may receive compensation for this type of content, which supports the work we do at no cost to you.