Are you looking to raise the ranking of your Shopify website on search engines like Google? Read on to learn all the tricks and strategies you need to know for Shopify SEO in 2023!
Let's face it, getting your website to rank highly on Google is more difficult now than it was in the early days of the internet. Then, everything else fell into place if you stuffed your page content with keywords. Now, keyword stuffing could even result in a penalty. Additionally, keyword stuffing is no longer effective because Google's ranking metrics are more complicated than ever.
But the good news is that your Shopify website can still rank highly on search engine result pages (SERPs). That is what this Shopify SEO guide is all about - to show you Search Engine Optimization strategies to help you improve your store’s ranking.
What Is Shopify SEO?
Shopify SEO is a collection of SEO modifications specific to the Shopify platform. While Shopify stores include a blog and the ability to redirect, these features can also lead to SEO problems like duplicate content.
Online stores powered by Shopify have features for content optimization built right in. Some SEO tasks are completed automatically, such as adding canonical tags to pages to prevent duplicate content from showing up in search results, creating sitemap.xml and robots.txt files for your website, and having themes create title tags with your store name. Themes must also include social media sharing and linking features to promote your store more easily.
Is Shopify Good For You?
Yes, for the most part. Shopify has nailed every essential SEO component. It has a ton of built-in tools and apps that efficiently index and rank your page in search engines. Additionally, it's probably the easiest eCommerce platform to optimize for SEO.
However, Shopify reveals some limitations as SEO specialists dive deeper into optimizing their eCommerce stores. Because Shopify is a closed platform, it offers less customization and flexibility than open platforms.
So, is Shopify effective for SEO? It depends on the marketing plan for your company. Will SEO be crucial to your company's success? Are more sophisticated SEOs required? We'll get to the specifics of what Shopify SEO can and cannot do to help you determine the need of your company.
Why It Is Important To Use SEO On Your Shopify Store
SEO Helps Position Your Brand
On Shopify, it is simple for any visitor to search, compare prices, or check brands. Consequently, SEO is regarded as a tool for enhancing the reputation of stores. More people will become aware of your product and take less time to make a purchase decision, thanks to the use of SEO for Google searches.
Additionally, your customers will have more faith in your stores if their preferred brand is listed on the first page of Google's search results. As a result, growing your business is simple.
SEO Creates Traffic And Boosts Sales
Using SEO, business owners can attract more customers to their stores. The likelihood that these visitors will become customers increases with the amount of traffic they receive. Focusing on the most relevant keywords increases traffic, conversions, and sales significantly. As a result, every online retailer can achieve their ultimate goal of profit optimization. Optimizing your Shopify store for search engine rankings will help you reach the top spot in search engine results, gain more visibility, generate more leads, and drive sales.
SEO Helps Customers Find You
Google will suggest your Shopify store to customers when looking for the products they want to purchase. They can quickly find your online store using the Google search engine. Utilizing SEO effectively will help customers find your products during their shopping process. Shopify store owners can choose the right keywords to use in page titles, meta descriptions, ALT tags, and body content to increase the visibility of their products.
SEO’s Effects Are Long-Lasting
Customer experience can improve when you receive more monthly orders and satisfy them. More positive reviews from customers will increase sales on Shopify. Customers are happy with the typical rankings that Google offers. In particular, it enables more customers to leave reviews, which increases consumer confidence in the brand. And subsequently, when customers trust a brand, they’re more likely to continue shopping with you. Therefore, SEO is essential for boosting long-term sales.
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Shopify SEO Best Practices
Below is a comprehensive list of Shopify SEO best practices to consider as you boost your site’s offerings.
Find The Best Keywords For Your eCommerce Shop
You can do this by sticking to the tactics listed below.
Research The Best Keywords To Target
Words that people use to search for a product similar to yours on Google will be revealed by keyword research. Once you've identified them, you'll use them on your website in strategic locations to promote various pages so that they appear on Google's first page of search results. When a page "ranks" on Google, it means that it appears on the first page of search results for a specific keyword, also known as a search term.
You can choose the most effective keywords to target for your business with the aid of a keyword research tool. Both Ubersuggest and Moz Keyword Explorer are free tools with upgrade options. Although Ahrefs doesn't have a free version, the $99 monthly option has all the features necessary to look up keywords and monitor your rankings.
Once you get the right tool, you can then check the keywords related to your niche, the average monthly search volume for each keyword (i.e., how many people are searching for it every month), and how difficult it will be to rank for that keyword. This can help you determine if you should target a certain keyword or not.
One of the easiest ways to do that is to search for your product on Google. Find the company listed on the first page, enter their information into your tool, see which keywords they are listed for and simply copy those. For instance, the brand Succulents Box appears first in search results for "rosette shaped succulents for sale."
Ensure The Keywords You Choose Have Purchase Intent
There are many different reasons why people conduct online searches. You're looking for online users who are actively looking to buy something. For instance, someone might Google "prickly pear cactus" to get a picture of one or to find out where to buy one for their garden.
Therefore, you need to look at the keywords for which Google ranks product and collection website pages to find the ones with a purchase intent behind them. You can tell there is buying intent if Google ranks product and collection pages for that keyword.1 For instance, the keyword "prickly pear cactus" produces images, its definition, and maintenance guidelines.
In contrast, collection pages are produced when the keyword "prickly pear cactus for sale" is searched. Therefore, in this example, the keyword you should target for your purchase intent is "prickly pear cactus for sale."
Place Them Strategically Across Your Website
You now need to strategically place the keywords you've identified (related to the various products you sell on your website) and create content centered around them. Include the keywords in the following places:
The Meta Title
This is the text that is displayed on search engine result pages.
The Page's H1 Heading
The heading at the top of a page, such as a blog post.
The Meta Description Of A Page
A meta title's sub-description that appears in search engine results.
A Blog Post Around The Topic
This article may define a subject, provide instructions, etc.
The Description Box On A Collection Or Product Page
A box containing additional details about a specific product or group of products.
The URL Of The Page
Place the keyword at the end. For example, https://www.yourshop.com/the-keyword-only.
All this can be done in the eCommerce website's back-end editing area. While it's critical to place your keywords strategically, avoid "keyword stuffing" by not using them excessively.
The information in a blog post or on the collection page should be centered around the benefits of your product, its distinctive qualities, and how it outperforms rivals. If you can, include that message on the collection page so that Google can better understand its purpose than if it were just a list of products.
Build Backlinks And Internal Links To Different Types Of Content
Link building entails contacting various online publications and brands to ask if they will link to a page on your website from their own. Google will view you as more credible if you have more links. Google gives it credibility by ranking it in the search results. In other words, if many people regard your content as trustworthy and deserving of a link, Google will too.
Building relationships with other brands is one of the best ways to build backlinks to your website, which is one of the most crucial components of creating a successful SEO strategy for your store. You'll need to produce content that is worthwhile for linking to. You can then develop the relationships and pitch the article to get links after you've created the content.
This is where writing blog posts come in. Other brands might not want to link to a collection page with a list of the items you sell, but they might be thrilled to link to a useful blog post. For instance, they'll be more likely to link to a blog post offering care instructions for succulents than to a page that simply lists succulents.
While internal linking entails making your own links within pages, link building necessitates outreach and relationship building. This entails linking to one of your blog posts from another post or a post pertaining to your collection page. Both links are useful for boosting a page's ranking. But because you can do so many SEO-related things, you might want to concentrate on helping collection pages appear in search results rather than product pages.
Create A Blog That Gives You Authority In Your Niche
The reason why blogging is important for eCommerce SEO is not what you might expect. The real advantage of having a blog is that it fosters something called topical relevance, as opposed to thinking of blog traffic as something that drives sales.
Google favors and ranks websites that are well-known in their industry. That might entail having a great link profile. Having high-quality content that fully addresses all of the queries people have regarding a specific product could also be interpreted this way. For instance, the plant store Succulents Box develops succinct pieces of content based on keywords related to the care of succulents, such as:
- When do I water my succulent plants?
- Treatment for transplant shock.
- Can succulents grow in the sand?
You should include an internal link from each blog post to the corresponding collection once you have created these pieces of content. You could, for instance, link the article about cultivating succulents in the sand to a collection of succulent species that do well in sand. By doing so, you add a layer of relevance, and those blogs support the collection pages' search engine optimization.
Add Keywords To Every Meta Title
The title of your page that appears on the search engine results page, such as in Google, is known as a meta title. You can improve your site's SEO with little effort by adding keywords to your meta descriptions.
Although it's common knowledge that SEO results take six months to manifest, there are times when the biggest improvement in rankings can be seen as early as the first month, simply due to the significance of the meta title.
On the back end of the eCommerce platform you use, you should be able to set a meta title for any page on your website. Navigate to the page you need to edit in the sidebar of Shopify's admin dashboard and scroll to the "search engine listing preview" at the bottom of the page.
An SEO best practice is to include that keyword in the corresponding meta description as well, much like adding the keywords you're targeting to meta titles.
Use Responsive Design
Google confirmed mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor in 2015.2 The good news is all Shopify themes claim to be responsive on mobile devices. But make sure you run the theme demo through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to check. Luckily Replo can help you achieve this without fuss.
Build, test, and iterate on Shopify without the dev time
Replo has hundreds of templates to help you launch and test new landing pages - without writing a line of code.
Remove Duplicate Content
The majority of online stores have pages and pages of product collections. This could result in Google indexing the incorrect page, harming your rankings. Google frequently tries to index pages two or three of a collection rather than the homepage.
Examining your URLs will reveal if there is a duplicate content issue of this kind. If they are formatted like this: https://www.example.com/collections/all-items?page=2 (if they include a number, such as 2, 3, 4, etc.), then you could be facing duplicate issues.
Using noindex tags is one method for resolving this issue. You can use a canonical tag if your platform doesn't allow you to noindex a page, which prevents it from appearing in Google search results, or if your CMS was specifically designed for your website. Canonical URLs are pre-built if you used a theme from the Shopify Theme Store to build your store on Shopify.
A piece of HTML code called the "canonical tag" tells Google which page is the most crucial and the one you want to rank for. Therefore, you should use a canonical tag to inform Google that the homepage of each collection should be visited or "crawled," not a subpage. This will greatly aid rankings.
Best SEO Tools For Shopify
Understanding and applying SEO best practices alone won't increase SEO for your Shopify store; using the appropriate tools will help you achieve the best results. Even if your store blog and/or product pages have excellent content, they will be of no use if no one visits them.
You can consistently attract high-quality organic traffic to your store with the help of effective Shopify SEO. The best part is that organic traffic is "free," but you need to invest a lot in producing quality content.
Fortunately, you can use a variety of helpful Shopify apps to make sure your SEO strategy is successful.
Particularly important to keep in mind are the following tools:
SEO Manager
The best Shopify SEO apps frequently offer users a variety of tools and features. That is why SEO Manager is so helpful. It provides a number of features aimed at assisting users in ranking higher in search results.
Additionally, it offers real-time feedback to users, assisting them in determining which Shopify SEO strategies are effective and which are not. SEO Manager has more than 20 features. A Google results simulator (which helps users better understand where their page will rank in search results), advanced meta settings, and a Google mobile-friendly test are some of the more notable ones.
These days, it's crucial to have that last feature. According to research, mobile devices accounted for roughly 52.6% of all website traffic as of the fourth quarter of 2019.3 With the widespread use of mobile devices, that percentage keeps increasing.
Therefore, your Shopify store must function well on mobile devices to reach as many potential customers as possible. It's important to note that SEO Manager is a very well-liked app among those who have used it. Its costs are also fairly affordable. A 7-day free trial is available to users before they decide whether they want to keep using it. SEO Manager costs $20/month after the trial period.
Smart SEO
It can take a lot of effort to maintain a Shopify online store. Any time you can, you must conserve time. Automating vital procedures is one way to achieve this. This is where the Smart SEO app comes in handy. Although it has many features, its main purpose is to automatically create meta tags, alt tags, and fix broken links, so you don't have to manually create and input them.
Additionally, it provides multi-language support for meta tags, which is advantageous for business owners who operate multiple stores in various languages. This helps you save a ton of time on tasks you would normally have to complete independently. The Smart SEO sitemap feature allows you to edit the sitemap within the app, whereas Shopify does not allow store owners to manage their store's sitemap.
Another app with a strong rating is this one. Start with a 7-day free trial and pay $4.99/month if you decide to keep using the app after the trial period.
SEO Master - Auto SEO Booster By Giraffly
An all-in-one SEO checker, Shopify SEO Master - Auto SEO Booster by Giraffly, boosts the SEO of Shopify sites for higher rankings, which in turn brings more organic traffic and increases sales. You can gain a lot of advantages from a variety of comprehensive features by using this app. With the SEO checklist in mind, the app specifically checks Shopify's on-page SEO to assist you in optimizing your pages.
Additionally, you can manually edit the ALT text, title tag, and meta description in one convenient location. You can leverage what the app offers if you don't want to implement it manually. Plus, Shopify SEO Master uses JSON-LD to enhance the information that appears on popular search engines, making Shopify sites stand out in the search results.
AVADA SEO Suite
The SEO Suite app makes it simple to create various on-page SEO components. Its goal is to make website images and structure as compatible with Google's search algorithms as possible. With the aid of AVADA SEO, you can speed up the loading of your store's images by optimizing their alt tags, size, and quality.
Additionally, it automatically adds Google structure data, or "rich snippets," and lets you easily manage your meta tags for each product, including the title and description. The integration with Google Search Console and the weekly reports are additional advantages of this excellent app.
The SEO Analysis is AVADA SEO Suite's most noteworthy feature. The SEO Suite app details all SEO issues, fixes, and successful outcomes for each product so that you can quickly implement the suggested changes and make the necessary adjustments.
Unfortunately, the free version of AVADA SEO Suite is no longer available. There is now a free and premium version of the app. You can optimize up to 50 products monthly and have access to some basic app features with the free version (alt text optimization, SEO checklist, 404-page scan, sitemap). Unlimited image optimization, meta tags, SEO analysis, and many other features are available with the premium version, which costs $29 per month.
Nada: Sort & Hide Sold‑out
Unpublishing products from your Shopify store that occasionally sell out is definitely not a good idea. You risk losing a reliable source of organic traffic if you remove them (even temporarily). Shopify's unpublished (i.e., switched to draft) product produces a 404 Not Found error and does not redirect. And Google disapproves of it!
Keep your products active and visible, and move the out-of-stock items to the bottom of the collection for the best SEO results. It makes no sense to display them elsewhere if they are not for sale. The Nada app is a great tool for doing that. Your collections are automatically sorted each time the status of the product inventory changes.
Once you enable auto-sorting, the particular collection is monitored for changes. A product will be automatically repositioned at the bottom of the collection if it runs out of stock. And if it becomes available again, it will be automatically put back in its original place.
Nada has a 7-day free trial, and prices start at $4.99. Pricing is determined by your Shopify store plan, and if you use Shopify Plus, it can go as high as $49.99.
AMP By AmpifyMe
Designing Shopify pages that are optimized for mobile is more crucial than ever due to the browsing habits of today's internet users. If your pages aren't currently performing well on mobile, SEO Manager can help you determine whether they should be. However, if they aren't, you should also use a tool that can help you make them more mobile-friendly.
Think about AmpifyMe's AMP. Your Shopify store can be transformed into an AMP, or "accelerated mobile page," using this tool. This mobile page loads faster than most mobile pages and looks great on small mobile screens. This is significant given that a website's bounce rate rises to 38% when it takes longer than five seconds to load.4
Users enjoy AMP by AmpifyMe as well. Flexible options exist for pricing. If that's all you need, you can use the free version, which has fewer features. Upgrade to the Hobbyist ($9.99/month), Small Company ($29.99/month), or Enterprise ($499.99/month) plans if you require more features.
Start Optimizing Your Shopify Site With REPLO
- Built For Serious eCommerce Teams
Replo is built for eCommerce teams, serious eCommerce teams! Whether you’re a performance marketer or a designer at an agency, iterating quickly and staying on-brand is key. On Replo, you can copy and paste sections or entire pages with one keyboard shortcut, and save and reuse any section on any page. Brands use Replo’s saved template system to create new pages quickly while keeping their content on-brand.
- Power Of The Web In The Palm Of Your Hands
Replo brings the full power of HTML/CSS in an intuitive user interface. Existing apps stop at “good enough,” but they're never quite there. Every marketing and design team has been there - there’s a certain icon you can’t set the color on, an image you can’t get to animate, or a button that can add a product to the cart but can’t go straight to checkout. Replo takes a fundamentally different approach and enables every component to have customizable styles, interactions, and animations.
- Designed For Shopify
No solution exists in a vacuum. Teams today use more and more 3rd-party services for analytics, merchandising, and subscriptions to help drive their business. Any solution that’s useful in this space must integrate seamlessly with tools that brands already love. With Replo, you can access all your data in Shopify, like product and collection data. This means that you can quickly and easily track your analytics to help you understand what’s working and what’s not and make tweaks right away.
Final Thoughts
SEO is essential, especially if you want to increase organic traffic rather than relying solely on risky Facebook ads. By utilizing the tools and strategies discussed above, you can drastically improve your Shopify's SEO and increase conversions, reduce bounce rate, build trust with users and make the most out of your online store. So, don't wait any longer - start optimizing now and bring your store to the top of search results!
Also, if you are looking for an easy, fast and foolproof way to optimize your Shopify store, Replo has you covered! At Replo, we utilize tools like Framer, Webflow, and Figma, and revolutionary web technologies like React and NextJS to tackle the messy and exciting world of eCommerce. We believe that every brand deserves to have a beautiful, intuitive and mobile-friendly store that will attract customers and help them grow.
So, book a demo today and let us show you how Replo can help you optimize and grow your Shopify store!
Sources:
- How investing in SEO can grow your ecommerce site traffic. Shopify. (2022, May 3). Retrieved from https://www.shopify.com/blog/ecommerce-seo-best-practices.
- Google. (n.d.). Google. Retrieved from https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2015/04/rolling-out-mobile-friendly-update.
- Bianchi, T. (2022, November 30). Global Mobile Traffic 2022. Statista. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/277125/share-of-website-traffic-coming-from-mobile-devices/.
- Does page load time really affect bounce rate? - pingdom. pingdom.com. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.pingdom.com/blog/page-load-time-really-affect-bounce-rate/.