Mastering Shopify for 2025: AI, SEO & Design Trends with Deonnah Carolus (Part 1)

In this episode of the Simple and Smart SEO Show, Crystal Waddell (That's me!) is joined by Shopify expert and founder of e-Commerce Savvy, Deonnah Carolus. 

They dive into the recent changes at Shopify, talk AI integration, theme changes like Horizon, and practical insights for e-commerce sellers. 

Whether you're new to Shopify or an experienced seller looking to stay ahead, this episode is packed with actionable strategies and future-focused predictions.

Key Takeaways:

• Shopify Evolution: Deonnah outlines how Shopify has transitioned from Debut to Dawn, and now to the new Horizon theme, offering more flexibility and AI-powered tools.
• AI Integration: Both the theme builder and theme generator now feature AI capabilities—but success still depends on the quality of your prompts.
• Theme Migration Tips: Migrating from Dawn to Horizon requires rebuilding custom templates. Early adoption helps avoid rushed transitions later.
• SEO in Social Media: SEO isn’t just for websites—Deonnah explains how it intersects with social media marketing.
• Pricing Services: Deonnah shares her method of pricing services based on the client’s business scale and goals, not a one-size-fits-all approach.

Memorable Quotes:

• “Google’s confused for the first time since 1996.” – Deonnah Carolus
• “Everyone’s trying to figure out how to get AI integrated into everything.” – Deonnah Carolus

Listener Action Items:

1. Evaluate Your Shopify Theme: If you’re still using Dawn or Debut, start testing Horizon now to prepare for the future.
2. Play with AI Tools: Begin experimenting with Shopify’s AI builder and theme generator to familiarize yourself with their capabilities.
3. Document Your Custom Pages: Before migrating, inventory your custom product and collection pages to simplify rebuilding them in Horizon.
4. Audit Your Pricing Strategy: If you’re a service provider, consider revisiting your pricing model to reflect client diversity like Deonnah suggests.
5. Follow the Trend: Stay informed on Shopify’s updates and the role of AI in e-commerce to future-proof your store.

Connect with Deonnah Carolus:

Does SEO feel confusing, overwhelming, or just plain impossible to figure out? You’re not alone. That’s why I created the AI SEO Foundations course, powered by Crystal GPT: your personal AI SEO coach designed for busy, creative business owners like you.

Ditch the overwhelm and discover what SEO can do for your business! Head to SEOin7days.com (with the number 7!) and get started today—let’s make your brand easy to find and impossible to ignore.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Deonnah: Everyone's trying to figure out how to get AI integrated into everything.

I mean, don't even get me started with Google. Google's confused for the first time since 1996. You know, trying to figure out how to integrate Gemini into their entire ecosystem.

Their algorithm is literally self-correcting itself every time they try to change it right now. So that's a whole other issue they're having to deal with.

But just give it time.

Who knows what's gonna happen. And if it's gonna be something that's actually valuable when it comes to the design. And how people are gonna use it for e-commerce.

[00:00:33] Crystal Waddell: Welcome to the Simple and Smart SEO show podcast.

I'm your host, Crystal Waddell, here to bridge the gap between SEO strategy and real world business success.

So grab a coffee or your favorite tea. and let's dive into Smarter SEO for your business. 

[00:00:47] Crystal: Welcome back to the Simple and Smart SEO show podcast. I've got something special today for my Shopify sellers.

You guys are gonna love this. We're talking all about Shopify today [00:01:00] with Deonnah Carolus. 

She is the founder at e-Commerce Savvy. And we're gonna be talking about Shopify ai, mindset, marketing, all the things.

So, Deonnah, thank you so much for joining us today on the Simple and Smart SEO show podcast.

[00:01:17] Deonnah: Thank you so much for having me, crystal. It's so nice to be here.

[00:01:20] Crystal: So you are a marketer who decided to specialize in Shopify. You know, my journey was from Etsy to Shopify.

[00:01:32] Deonnah: Yep.

[00:01:33] Crystal: How did you get here?

[00:01:34] Deonnah: That's such an insanely good question. So we were talking earlier, as you know, I cut my teeth on local SEO WordPress website development.

Social media marketing for local service-based businesses along the front range. I'm out here in Colorado.

So in 2014 through about 2019, that's what I was doing.

In 2019, I started getting a lot more [00:02:00] Shopify inquiries. 

Just people calling me like, do you do this? Do you do that? Because back, you know, back between 2017 and 2019, there weren't a lot of like SEOs on the internet.

So you could Google SEO expert or specialist near me and it'd be like me and maybe four other businesses in the span of 20 miles.

So that's not true anymore today.

So because I would come up in different search queries, I was getting more e-commerce clients. So the first store I got was a live fish distributor here locally.

But the thing about them was that they distributed all of the live fish to Walmart stores. That would sell those live fish animals.

And then Denver public schools for like, their science programs. So it was a pretty big project.

I do have a degree in coding and website development. I have a minor.

My major is marketing. But so I took on the project, it took me three [00:03:00] months.

And that's how I really got for more familiar with Shopify. And after that, I was hooked on it. I was, because I was very anti, I was like a WordPress girly.

I was always like, WooCommerce this and blah, blah, blah.

But WooCommerce has always been very clunky and very hard to navigate.

So and this is coming from someone who has experience with coding and is very familiar with the WordPress platform.

But everyone started to be more aware of Shopify 20 19. 20 20, 20 21. Now it's a very, very much a Shopify first developer world.

People who are building apps or connectivity to other services are designing with Shopify first in mind.

So it's becoming the standard, my opinion, website across any industry, which is exciting. So that's how I got my start.

And then I just kept getting, you know, more and more clients in the e-commerce space. All of 2020. All I did was connect Instagrams shops [00:04:00] to Shopify 'cause there was no automatic connections. So, because of COVID and the Times we were in.

People that even had a brick and mortar, they wanted to get on Shopify and be like doing local delivery and local pickup and selling their products online more.

And there was no real like easy way to connect those things. But I hacked it. I figured out how to do that .

Social Media Examiner had an article on me 'cause I was like the Instagram shop person to come and get your store connected. So I was just like slinging, you know, Instagram shop connections all of 2020.

Which was really great at the time and it's a lot easier today.

But yeah, that was, that was a challenge.

And even on Squarespace, you know, Facebook and Instagram, they're not a partner with Squarespace at all.

So it's very hard to sell your products on in a platform like Squarespace. It's still just not quite there. So how I got started. 

[00:04:55] Crystal: That's really cool. I love Shopify. Obviously my e-commerce store is on Shopify, [00:05:00] but I use Wix for my SEO website. And Wix has a Shopify integration. They sell stores.

[00:05:08] Deonnah: yeah.

[00:05:09] Crystal: But I'm like, I'm pretty sure that's Shopify. Just, repackaged. You know? ,

[00:05:13] Deonnah: Yeah. 

[00:05:14] Crystal: Yeah. So I thought, oh, that is so interesting.

And the other thing I was thinking about is 2020. That was crazy because that's when I really learned about SEO.

Because it was the clubhouse explosion.

And that's when I was poking around and listening to people.

And like, search engine optimization. Tell me more about this. This is amazing.

So I wonder if that's where the proliferation of SEO experts came from.

Because I know that's where I was born. I was like,

[00:05:39] Deonnah: Interesting.

[00:05:40] Crystal: circa 2020.

[00:05:42] Deonnah: Yeah, that's interesting. I think I, because I come from social media marketing, you know, early on.

When I decided to open up my own boutique agency and start networking locally . I quickly learned that SEO is an important function of social media.

You know, 'cause back then you could [00:06:00] literally post a link to your website. And people would go there. And it was a much easier. 

[00:06:05] Crystal: Well, from a business perspective, I'm just curious . How did you figure out your pricing? To connect those shops? 'Cause that was something I've always struggled with is like, what do I charge for this?

[00:06:16] Deonnah: Yeah. I think for me it was just a matter of like, looking at the business as a whole. Like what vertical is it?

And then looking at my own demographic, like who do I wanna help the most?

What is their, price point looking like? So if I'm helping someone who owns a local brick and mortar, very successful. They're probably doing a couple million dollars a year. I would price them differently. I hope it's okay for me to say that.

I would price them a little differently than I would say a handmade store owner or an artist who's like, you know making jewelry in their basement. Or whatever. And just really wants to get their business up and running.

So, or they're trying to get on [00:07:00] Faire and do local markets and have their own Shopify store. That looks a little different than someone who's already established looking to expand or grow, more. And get more visibility.

I would say there's really no, like all across the board, everyone gets this one price. And it's harder for us as business owners and marketers to have a streamlined service.

When you are servicing so many different segments in your own business.

Especially in eCommerce because you know, you have people that are making 10K a month.

All the way up to 150, $200,000 a month. So it's hard to tell what's going on from the outside of a Shopify store.

Just looking at the front end.

Just their store and what they're selling. Because it could look like crap.

And then, and they're doing $500,000 in sales a year. So it's just, you just don't know, you know, until you get back there.

[00:07:54] Crystal: That is the truth.

So let's talk about Shopify in [00:08:00] 2025 and maybe even going into 2026.

From your perspective, how has Shopify evolved in the past few years?

[00:08:07] Deonnah: Yeah, so I have been using Shopify, Shopify since the debut days.

Which was their framework, their original theme. Then they went to Dawn, which everyone has loved that theme.

You know, that's their main bread and butter for so long, and people got used to that and comfortable. The functionality was great, and now they're on horizon starting 2025.

So a couple months back they switched their default theme over to Horizon.

Which has a whole bunch of new bells and whistles where you can create sections within sections on pages and different blocks within sections.

It's got a lot more flexibility when it comes to the design overall. It now also has an AI builder built into where those sections are.

So instead of figuring out how to put a section somewhere.

You can use the [00:09:00] AI tool to tell it, well, I would like this section to have, you know, a like a three image scrolling area that features, you know, my blog posts.

Or that features my new collection of necklaces or whatever.

And then it'll automatically build that for the person in seconds.

However, we're still in a prompt, you know, as you're as good as your prompts.

So if you're prompting the AI and you're not really very clear on what you're trying to get it to do. It's gonna spit out something kind of weird, you know?

And if you wanted to, to create, you know, the other day I had my AI builder to do like this neon sign lettering.

It didn't look good on any store. I would, I wouldn't put it on there, but it definitely created it, you know, it made it look kind of neat.

I don't know what kind of store would use that.

But still, you know, you just, you get in there and you play with these tools, so. The changes are just more design flexibility overall in 2025 and 2026.

I think we're [00:10:00] in, don't know, I would say level three or four iteration of the horizon theme. So they're still adding things to it. There's still, figuring out how to make it better all the time.

So just if you are on horizon, just keep updating to the latest version.

And you can do that with no problem because it's a Shopify theme. 

Shopify, they've developed it. It's not a third party developed theme. But yeah, so that's just more, more design flexibility, more sections, more blocks.

Which could get a little more crowded. The AI builder tool. And now they have an AI theme generator. Which is very interesting.

I don't think we're at the place of just letting a platform create a theme for us to just go ahead and say, yes, this is what I'm gonna use.

And then just plop it into your theme section. And use that for your store.

I do think it's beneficial to generate ideas . Add different sections it creates for you. And then figure out if this [00:11:00] makes the most sense for what you want your store to look like. 

And then it gives you the chance to play around with that. So that way you can get familiar with the sections and different building tools.

If you use a AI generated theme within their theme builder.

So lots of cool features, but I still think we're know, we're in the early days of AI still. It is kind of a buzz thing.

Everyone's trying to figure out how to get AI integrated into everything.

I mean, don't even get me started with Google. Google's confused for the first time since 1996. You know, trying to figure out how to integrate Gemini into their entire ecosystem.

Their algorithm is literally self-correcting itself every time they try to change it right now. So that's a whole other issue they're having to deal with.

But just give it time, you know? Who knows what's gonna happen? And if it's gonna be something that's actually valuable when it comes to the design.

And how people are gonna use it for e-commerce.

[00:11:58] Crystal: When I first started with [00:12:00] Wix for my SEO website.

One of the first designs that I created was their AI generated layouts.

I said, Hey, I wanna make an SEO website. And it like, created it and I was like, ah, that looks good. You know? 'cause I just didn't have the time really to build it at that point.

So I was like, ah, whatever. And then I went back. Now I upgraded to Wix studio because they've got fun little graphics.

And, you know, movement and different things. in that particular website builder.

But I think it's interesting that you said go back to the dawn days!

Because I felt like everybody knew everything about Shopify before I got there.

I transitioned like in 2020, I think.

From my GoDaddy web store or whatever it was that I had.

 I knew I needed to switch to Shopify. But it always just seemed like too much of an undertaking.

And so one day I just said, you know what? I'm signing up for the two week trial. I'm canceling my other website. I've got two weeks to make this happen. And so I did.

It's been like the best [00:13:00] decision obviously for my e-commerce store.

Debut was the first theme I had. I didn't realize that made me kind of like an og. 'Cause I had debut.

I still have Dawn. But this is my beef with Horizon.

I think Horizon's got these really cool like video sections that I just love.

Because it's like I can use some of those social media videos that I've made of my products.

But it seems like you have to reinvent the entire wheel.

I have product page templates, collection page templates.

That I've poured my heart and soul into creating over in the Dawn theme.

And you'll have to tell me what you think, but I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to redo all of that in Horizon. Is that right? Is there any other way?

[00:13:45] Deonnah: Unfortunately, no. So anything that you have created that's extra.

That's like outside of your theme box, for Dawn, you'll have to rebuild that.

And honestly, I know people that have just tried to move over to Horizon [00:14:00] vertically. 'cause you know how you can just switch themes and typically everything like the, the structure will stay.

That's not the case right now.

So hopefully eventually there will be that like one click migration where it's gonna save a bunch of your work.

And then you'll just have to redo all of your custom pages. But no, not right now.

So if you are thinking about moving over to Horizon from Dawn.

I would just start the process, you know, download the theme into your Shopify store and start that process. 

I know for right now, Shopify is not gonna be updating the core of Dawn.

So they are adding different elements that Horizon has.

So people that are on Dawn can start to get familiar and comfortable with the new setup and the new structure of where Shopify is going.

But if you are on Dawn, I would say you can continue to be on Dawn.

Some people are still on debut, which is insane. 

They haven't updated debut in [00:15:00] forever.

I don't know how that's functioning for people.

But, I would say you have a good year, maybe two.

Switching over to Horizon is gonna be, it should be your priority for your business. Eventually.

So the earlier you start and rebuild everything. The smoother the transition's gonna be to go live under the new situation they're doing over there at Shopify.

[00:15:23] Crystal: it kind of gives me a little bit of focus.

Hearing you say that.

It's like, okay, as I create. Stuff for like my SEO squad, and resources for the group.

It's like, okay, I can lean more into Horizon.

At the same time I'm so hesitant to build any part of what I do. Based on what another business does. Just because they can change at any point in time.

But it does look like, obviously it's gonna be here for a while.

And it is the shift that's coming. So you're helping me mentally kind of prepare for that.

So let's talk about some of those AI improvements that Shopify's got right now. 

[00:16:00]