When you set up your Shopify store, by default, they gave you a domain name. For mine, it was bootstrap-website.myshopify.com

Unless you’re happy with this default domain name, you might want to change it to something else – e.g. www.myshopname.com. Here’s what I did.

Go to Settings -> Domains

If you do not already own a domain name, you can buy one directly from Shopify easily. Click Register a new domain name.

Alternatively, you can also buy a domain name with other registrars (which I prefer to maintain ALL my domain names via Namecheap), but you'll like to do a one time mapping as you can see below.

If you do own a domain name (as in my case), you’ll have to map the domain name. In my case, I’ll like my shopify store to point to my sub-domain – shopify.bootstrapwebsite.com

After clicking on ‘Add Domain', I’ll have to map the domain through my domain registrar, Namecheap, which manages my domain names and hosting.

Note: the following steps are specific to Namecheap, the domain registrar that I use. If you’re using other domain name registrars or webhosts, you need to similarly map the IP address, but the actual steps will defer.

After logging into Namecheap, I selected Domain List, and selected the domain I purchased (e.g. yoursitename.com), and selected Advanced DNS

Create 2 records:

1. 'A' record - create an @ record and point to 23.227.38.65
2. 'CNAME' record - create a www record and point to shops.myshopify.com

Done! Your website should now point to your Shopify store page.

Purchasing a Domain Name

My preference is to purchase and maintain ALL my domain name via Namecheap. That's because they are one of the most affordable and easy to manage registrars,.

If you'll also like to do so, search for your domain name to purchase via the search field below.