Happy New Year! 🥳
It seems 2023 has been a difficult year for everyone. Cost of living is up, people are buying less stuff online, and many are affected by mass layoffs. I’m glad 2023 is over!
However, it’s been a very interesting year from a tech perspective.
Shopify had two events with major updates across the entire platform:
And obviously, it’s been a massive year for AI tools. It’s exciting to see what the future holds.
In today’s newsletter:
- Heads up for 2024
- Scrolling text banners video
- Shopify SEO for beginners
- Vote on upcoming SEO videos
- Shopify Forms app is worth another look
Look out for Flex sections in 2024
Back in the July Shopify Editions, Shopify hinted at a major overhaul to the sections/blocks structure.
What we see here is:
- A more flexible layout - the ability to change size and order of blocks.
- More than just blocks inside sections. You will be able to group blocks and create more levels of depth.
I have no further information about this, but just keep in mind that the next Shopify Editions should be sometime soon - February 2024 - and we might see these features being launched.
With that in mind, I’d say January is a bad time to update or switch themes, in case you were planning to do that. Perhaps wait another month, because the update after that will be a huge one.
📹 Scrolling Text Sections Video + Gumroad product
Just in case you missed it, my last video discusses the pros and cons of scrolling text banners AKA Marquees.
If you want to add one to your theme you can grab the code from shop.ed.codes and simply copy/paste into a new section file.
📹 Practical Shopify SEO guide for beginners (unreleased video)
Most of you are not beginners so this video may not apply to you, but it might be good to review if you are missing any of these basics.
Also, this is the first in a series of shorter videos on specific, more advanced SEO topics.
My most important videos of 2023
Here are some videos that I think are essential for a Shopify DIYer:
- Shopify Coding 101 - an intro for total beginners to HTML, CSS and Liquid.
- Updating your theme - eventually, you will have to do it.
- How to use the custom CSS field - the easiest way to make small mods to the look of your store
- Shopify Metaobjects Tutorial - one of the most powerful features Shopify launched in 2023
📢 Shopify updates
The official Shopify Forms app finally becomes useful
Have you used the official forms app? It’s always been a bit disappointing because it sounds like an app that helps you create custom forms, but so far it was really just an email capture tool for your newsletter.
If you wanted to use it as a contact form for wholesale inquiries, custom product orders etc… you could set that up, but it would not send you a notification email when someone submitted the form! To check the values of the submitted form you would need to visit the customer’s page in your admin. But how would you know to do that?
Well, that’s finally fixed, so it now sends you a notification email just like the regular contact form that you get on the contact template of every Shopify theme. You can turn email notification on/off for every form that you create.
The rest of the features are actually pretty cool - you can make popup forms or embedded forms in a block. So for example now you can embed a custom order form in a product page.
As usual, you can check the Shopify Changelog to see more updates.
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Cheers,
Ed