Getting your customers to find your store is probably one of your biggest objectives and Shopify SEO can help you do exactly that.
Shopify has enabled thousands of entrepreneurs to sell products online without any hassle. But, running a digital store means facing a huge amount of competition.
Search engine optimization or SEO is a great way to drive interested users to your online store without having to pay for each visitor. However, users behave differently when looking for an online store, not to mention the fact that search ranking algorithms also evaluate these pages in a unique way.
Shopify SEO optimization is a great way to adjust the variables that impact your search engine rankings. In this article, we will go over the steps on how to optimize SEO on Shopify.
Are SEO and Shopify Stores Compatible?
Before going over the steps to create an SEO optimization Shopify strategy, let’s take a moment to understand this marketing method and how it can be used to promote your Shopify website.
Shopify is an ecommerce platform that includes a page builder, payment gateway, and all other elements needed to run a digital store. This includes product pages, a gallery, blog posts, and all other parts of an online shop.
SEO is the practice of adjusting your ecommerce shop and the elements that impact its ranking in order to get better positions on Google search results.
Simply put, Google and other search engines are a great source of engaged visitors in the form of organic web traffic. SEO is the digital marketing strategy that allows you to leverage traffic from search engines and bring interested users to your ecommerce store without having to pay for each visitor.
The best part about SEO is that it’s compatible with almost all sites, including a Shopify ecommerce site.
How to Optimize Your Shopify Store for Google
There are many elements that impact your organic Shopify store rank, including meta tags, product descriptions, and structured data markup on your site.
So, to successfully perform SEO optimization for Shopify, you need to know all of these factors as well as understand the impact they have on the search engine results.
Not only this, but you also need to have the right SEO tools and analyze off-page as well as on-page SEO. The best way to do this is to create an SEO checklist tailored specifically to your company.
Once you have all the SEO resources you’ll need, make sure to:
Create an SEO and Content Marketing Strategy
Learning how to optimize Shopify stores without a clear blueprint is extremely challenging. Rather than learning as you go, take the time to evaluate your resources, set goals, and create a strategy to boost the ranking of your Shopify pages.
You should be as detailed as possible and include specific steps, like:
- Add custom structured data
- Perform keyword research
- Create new meta titles and meta descriptions
- Optimize old page titles
- Build out category pages
- Fix broken links
- Check for duplicate content on multiple pages
- Optimize page title for every main page
- Evaluate top competitors on the first search results page
- Optimize content for Google image search
Remember to create smaller milestones to track your progress and set deadlines for each one.
Adjust Robots.txt Files
To optimize Shopify, store owners need to get technical and adjust their robots.txt files. Simply put, this is a simple .txt file that tells Google crawlers what pages to parse and what others to ignite. By having an updated robots.txt file, you’ll make sure that crawlers visit your pages regularly and that they analyze the right data.
Incorporate SEO Keywords
Next, you need to find the target keyword you’ll use on every page. You should create a list of related keywords and incorporate these into your pages to create powerful content that ranks for relevant terms.
There are many platforms you can use to conduct keyword research. This includes the Google Keyword Planner, AHREFS, and many other tools. Just make sure to choose a reliable platform as the keywords you use will be one of the main rank boosters for your Shopify product pages.
Improve Site Structure
The architecture or structure of a site is essential for good search rankings. In addition to having a logical structure for crawlers, your page should be light and easy to navigate. If not, you’ll likely run into technical SEO issues that result in low rankings.
Find and Submit Your Sitemap
You should open a Google Search Console account and install it on your store. Then, track down the sitemap that’s automatically generated for your website and submit it through the Search Console.
Install Analytics
No set of tips on how to optimize SEO on Shopify is complete without Google Analytics.
In short, this is Google’s analytical platform which you can use to track your site performance and unveil insights about your audience.
The installation is relatively simple and once up you’ll be able to track data about the organic traffic that visits every blog post or web page on your site.
Adjust Your Content for SEO
Now, it’s time to adjust the content on your Shopify site.
The meta description, the density of your target keywords, and title tags will all influence your SEO success. Additionally, remember to adjust internal links and install Yoast SEO on your website to ensure that all written content is of the highest standard.
Build Your Backlink Profile and Optimize Your Campaign
Finally, you should start working on link building. This is the practice of getting quality sites to link back to your content and vice versa.
If you want to sell online consistently, you’ll also have to create an optimization schedule. In other words, you need to set sessions during which you evaluate your website SEO and make adjustments to get better results.
Ready to Take Your Shopify Store to the Next Level?
Building an SEO strategy for Shopify requires a significant amount of work. But, as long as you create a plan before you start, leverage the right keyword research tool, and adjust the technical elements on your site, you’ll rank for relevant terms that have a good search volume.
To find out more on how to optimize Shopify web pages, contact Fannit today.
