How to remove the Powered by Shopify link (and do something far more profitable instead)

Welcome to my step-by-step guide on how to remove the Powered by Shopify link (and do something far more profitable instead).

As you'll see, removing the link is quite easy.

But before you rush to the instructions and actually go through with it, I urge you to consider this:

IMPORTANT: Instead of removing the Powered by Shopify link, you can try to earn some money with it!

So instead of following the advice of the so-called experts (or even the well-meant advice of fellow shop owners) who also struggle with maximizing the profitability of their Shopify store ...

...you can read this guide all the way through and you'll not only find out exactly how to remove the Powered by Shopify link, but also discover a little-known way of actually making money with said link.

This will all make perfect sense in a bit, but first, take a look at a quick overview of everything that I've covered in this guide:

What is the Powered by Shopify link?

In the unlikely case that you're not even sure what the Powered by Shopify link is (you only heard from someone that you need to remove it from your Shopify store asap) here's a quick rundown:

Unless you bought, or had a custom Shopify theme designed and coded for you, Shopify will automatically add the Powered by Shopify link at the bottom of every single page of your Shopify store.

This means that your store's home page, your category pages, your product pages, and your checkout pages will all be "spammed" by this little promotional beauty at the bottom:

Or, depending on the theme you've chosen, the link may look slightly different:

How the link looks isn't terribly important.

What matters is that anyone who clicks the link gets ripped out of your Shopify store and lands on the Shopify website.

And on that's where, naturally, Shopify promotes their own services.

Which brings us right to...

How Shopify wins big with the link?

If you leave everything unchanged with the Powered by Shopify link, then this really is a no contest.

Shopify wins hands down when that link gets clicked. Every. Single. Time.

So first, Shopify charges you for their services and apps (the unpleasant monthly fee you have to pay to keep your store alive).

Then, Shopify keeps using your store and your hard earned traffic to quite shamelessly build and strengthen their own brand and promote their own services.

The benefits of a single footer link from a single insignificant store may not be all that great, but with thousands of stores all over the world holding on to the link, this CAN quickly add up.

And this is exactly why the knee-jerk reaction of everyone I've talked to so far, including many Shopify "experts", is to remove the link as soon as possible.

Because the benefits of removing the link really do look quite strong and convincing:

The benefits of removing the link

It's a fact:

If you really want to optimize your Shopify store and maximize the revenue it can generate , then you could do far dumber things that straight up remove the Powered by Shopify link.

Why?

The Powered by Shopify does a much bigger favor to Shopify, than it does to you in these three ways:

1. You work so hard (or even have to pay) for people to visit your Shopify store. Why on earth would you ever want that precious traffic to click away from your store? (That's apart from the reason I'm about to reveal in a minute.)
2. You want to remove as much friction from your checkout process as possible . And a site-wide promotional link that takes your about-to-buy visitors away from your website, definitely isn't helping.
3. If you want your store's brand to ever become widely known and popular, you'll have to invest huge amounts of time and money in brand recognition. With that in mind, you should do everything humanly possible to promote ONLY your own brand in your store and AVOID mentioning ANY other brands (including Shopify).

Considering all this, the benefits of keeping the link look quite weak and unimpressive in comparison (to the untrained eye):

The benefits of keeping the link

To understand why keeping the link could help you out, you need to understand the psychology of the "non-buyer" type of visitors.

By that I mean the visitors who came to your store with absolutely no intention to ever buy from you.

This usually includes two types of people (only one of which is important):

• Your competition: These guys are lurking about your store, checking out your most popular products, design and checkout process in hopes they will find something they can "e;steal" and use in their own store. Those guys already have some experience and most probably have their own shop running, so they're quite unlikely to ever click the Powered by Shopify link.
• Wannabe shop owners: These are the people that clicked to your store just out of curiosity to see what you've created. They don't want to steal anything from you or compete with you, but they are looking around for clues on how to start an online shop on their own.

These aspiring shop owners can include your entrepreneurial friend who works in a completely different niche but clicks your store link thinking: "If he/she can start a store like this, so can I."

Apart from people who know you, the wannabe shop owners can literally be anyone who ever noticed that you're running a Shopify shop and want to do the same - even when they have a completely different product/niche/location in mind.

And the wannabe shop owners who visit your Shopify store are literally the only group of visitors that may help you earn some money with the Powered by Shopify Link.

Let's take a closer look at how:

How to make money with the link?

You now understand that some "wannabe shop owners" visitors may visit your Shopify store with the sole intention of figuring out how they could set up a similar online store for themselves (even if they wanna sell in a totally different niche/location).

And those are the exact types of visitors that are the most likely to click the Powered by Shopify link on your store.

Why?

Because they want to check out the same service (Shopify) you've used to set up the store that's impressing them.

So, how you can actually make some money when they click the Powered by Shopify link:

IMPORTANT: You have to turn the promotional, branded and attention stealing link into a Shopify affiliate link!

After you do this, each and every time one of those wannabe shop owners clicks through to the Shopify website, you could be earning a sizable commission from the Shopify Affiliate program.

Here's how much money we're actually talking about:

Earn the first two months of a customer's paid subscription fee (200% bounty) for every new Shopify merchant that you refer — up to $598 on standard plans. Earn 100% bounty on our enterprise plan which pays $2,000 for new Shopify Plus referrals.

(These figures are valid at the time of writing, but do verify them at the Shopify website as well.)

So for every wannabe shop owner that ever signs up for the Shopify service, you could be getting paid hundreds, even thousands of dollars.

Still so eager to remove the Powered by Shopify link?

I'll cover the steps on how to create a Shopify affiliate link in the final instructions, but now, I need to get one thing that really frustrates me off my chest...

Shopify could easily correct this unfairness

If Shopify wanted their promotional link to be fair to everyone, they could easily have fixed it so you'd receive automatically receive a "cut" for every new customer you send their way.

Shopify already knows how many of those wannabe shop owners click the Powered by Shopify link on your store AND how many of them sign up for their service.

And since they're getting free exposure, branding and new paying customers off your hard earned traffic and the service that you're already paying for, they could easily have sent an email like this your way:

"Listen, last month, the Powered by Shopify link that we plastered all over your store has brought us 3 new customers that signed up for our paid plans, so the service you're paying for every month will be on us for the next 3 months. Cheers!"

Instead, they happily collect new paying customers off your valuable store traffic with the link, but only keep sending monthly invoices your way.

(If you're anything like me, you now feel a strong desire to let them know about this unfairness in their next "storeowners satisfaction" survey - or even shoot an email their way straight off the bat.)

But until Shopify solves this issue on their side (if ever), let's take a look at the changes you can make to fix the Powered by Shopify link yourself:

How to make a better-converting link?

The very first thing you need to change about the Powered by Shopify link is the "call to action" text of the link.

Just like with any other click-inviting element on your Shopify store, the CTA text of the link should try to provide context and motivation for your visitor to actually click it.

So, which of the CTA texts do you think is more likely to convince a wannabe shop owner that's browsing your Shopify store to click the link - which can in turn help you earn some money as a Shopify affiliate after they sign up for their own Shopify store:

"Powered by Shopify"?

OR

"Wanna to start your own online store?"

I think you already know the answer to that question.

Now, this is just an example. The link could literally say a hundred different things like "Go here to start your own online store" "Start your online store in under 30 min" or even "Start your passive online business before you're too old and too broke to care!"

Doesn't really matter what CTA text you ultimately put in your link (I'll show you how to change it in the final step-by-step instructions), but it'll be tough to do worse than the heavily branded "Powered by Shopify" CTA text.

Once you take care of the CTA text of the link, here's what you can do to spread the link among potential store owners without making it look like you're promoting it.

How to make even more money with the link?

I'm going to be fully honest with you.

You can't expect to earn a lot of money as a Shopify affiliate with this (unless you're really lucky), but you'll get to enjoy another huge benefit if you follow my strategy:

Once you set everything up in your brand new Shopify store (or even if your store has already been running for a while), you can start submitting it to many different places online.

Just don't write anything spammy or promotional, because people WILL hate it, simply ask for their honest opinion and what improvements they'd make to your store.

You can find literally thousands of ecommerce communities, groups and forums via Google or Facebook (there's no need to limit your searches to "Shopify" groups).

Don't count on any sales of your products in groups like these (as much as mentioning your products, discounts or offers could come across as spammy), but the feedback and suggestions you will receive FOR FREE could turn out to be invaluable.

(And if some newbie wannabe shop owner signs up through your Shopify affiliate link, life will be just so much better.)

IMPORTANT: The only exception to freely sharing your Shopify store with the world is if you have a killer product in a killer niche that the competition has yet to discover!

Enough on WHY you should either change the "Powered by Shopify" link into amoney-earning affiliate link or get rid of it straight away.

Let's take a look at HOW to actually do this.

A step-by-step guide to removing the link

Follow this steps to remove the Powered by Shopify link from your website footer:

1. From your Shopify store's admin go to Sales channels -> Online Store -> Themes.

2. Go to Current Theme -> Actions -> Edit Code.

3. In the Search box type in "theme.liquid" and open the theme.liquid file.

4. Press CTRL + F on Windows or COMMAND + F on a Mac and search for "{{ powered_by_link }}". If you can't find it, return to step 3, search for and open the footer.liquid file and repeat step 4.

If you still can't find it the return to step 3, search for and open the mini-footer.liquid file and repeat step 4. If you're the unluckiest person on earth and you still couldn’t locate the right file, then you'll need to search for the right file yourself or ask a web developer to help you.


5. After you've located the "{{ powered_by_link }}", you can:
1. Delete it - this will remove the Powered by Shopify link from your Shopify store - or
2. (You have to sign up as a Shopify Affiliate to get your affiliate link.) Replace it with this code: <a href="your_affiliate_link" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Your (CTA) link text</a>

Be very careful to remove ONLY the "{{ powered_by_link }}" tag (including braces) and to carefully replace the CTA text and the affiliate link and insert ONLY the code I've given you in step 5.b.


6. Click Save in the top right corner of the code editor and you're done!

Summary (actionable takeaways)

Awesome, you've made it to the end of what turned out to be quite an in-depth guide on how to remove the Powered by Shopify link from your Shopify store...

...or better yet, replace it with a profitable affiliate link that can potentially score hundreds of dollars on autopilot.

Here's a quick recap of the things you can take home with you after reading my guide all the way through:

• The Powered by Shopify link is located at the bottom of every single page on your Shopify store and the cons of keeping it unchanged far outweigh the pros (but that doesn't necessarily mean you should simply remove the link.)
• Even though Shopify benefits much more from the link than the shop you've worked so hard for, you can turn the tables in your favor if you switch to an affiliate link - this makes this whole "Powered by Shopify" issue far more feasible and fair both for you and Shopify.
• You can potentially earn hundreds, even thousands of dollars over time, if enough "wannabe" owners notice the affiliate link and sign up for the Shopify services through the link.
• After you've set up the link on your store, you can kill two birds with one stone and "promote" the link while collecting invaluable and free feedback and suggestion for your store.

Well done for reaching the end of this guide.

If you're ready for more, then I suggest read my guide on what it actually takes to build a profitable online shop next.