Shopify has emerged as one of the leading e-commerce platforms, empowering small and medium sized businesses to create and manage online stores efficiently. You don’t have to worry about hiring developers to create your website from scratch. Plus, you can rely on the value of the Shopify brand to grow your business. However, using the platfomr is not enough; you need to implement effective Shopify SEO tactics to drive organic traffic and increase conversions.
In this article, we will give you step by step guidelines to make your Shopify store a success. So, let’s get started.
Why is SEO Important for Shopify Stores?
While Shopify offers a comprehensive platform for sales, marketing and many useful tools, you cannot just sit back and let it work on its one.
Thus, Shopify SEO is essential for several reasons:
- Increased visibility: Higher rankings lead to more clicks and visits.
- Cost-effective: Organic traffic is free, unlike paid advertising.
- Credibility: Top-ranking sites are often seen as more trustworthy.
- Targeted traffic: SEO helps attract visitors genuinely interested in your products.
Remember, you are solely responsible for the success of your online store. So get ready to implement the following tested and proven Shopify SEO tactics:
1. Start with Keyword Research
Keyword research forms the foundation of any successful SEO strategy. You can use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, or Ahrefs to identify relevant keywords for your products or services.
Remember to create a good mix of general purpose keywords, local keywords and long tail keywords. This ensures that you capture audiences that live in your local area and have a specific buying intent.
Also, don’t forget to examine your competitors’ keyword strategies and find any gaps which you can fill with your keyword optimised content.
2. Optimise Product Pages
Product pages are at the heart of your online store and our Shopify SEO tactics, as well. Here are a few helpful guidelines:
- Create unique and descriptive product titles, containing relevant keywords
- Write compelling product descriptions, focusing on key benefits, features and specifications
- Do not use boilerplate content for similar products – make sure that each product page has unique content
- Use high resolution images and videos for each product
- Optimise images with title and alt text containing a relevant keyword.
3. Focus on Content Creation and Blogging
Creating valuable content can attract organic traffic and establish your store as an authority in your niche: Well written and informative content is also highly shareable, bringing your Shopify store in front of new audiences.
Here are a few ideas for your Shopify SEO content strategy:
- Maintain an active blog within your Shopify store.
- Write informative articles and news stories related to your products or industry developments
- Use FAQs and blog posts to answer common customer queries.
- Show your expertise and build trust with your audience through tutorials and how-to atticles.
4. Perform On-Page SEO Optimisation Carefully
Shopify SEO tactics are no different from the best practice for any other website when it comes to on-page SEO. Thus, you should create a checklist that covers all the following aspects:
- Create meta titles and descriptions that incorporate relevant keywords
- Adjust their character limits to ensure they display correctly in search results
- Use header tags to structure your content.
- Include keywords in H1 tags for the main page title.
5. Don’t Forget about Mobile Optimisation
Mobile optimisation is critical, as Google has switched to mobile-first indexing. Best practices in this area of Shopify SEO tactics include:
- Ensure your Shopify theme is responsive and adapts to various screen sizes
- Test your website’s mobile usability with tools like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test
- Use a simple navigational structure
- Compress the size of images and videos so that they load fast even on slow connections.
6. Spruce Up Technical SEO
Technical SEO involves optimising the backend of your Shopify store for search engines. This is an aspect for which you should enlist the assistance of an experienced developer. Some of the issues that may need adjusting are:
- Eliminating unnecessary code or scripts
- Creating an XML sitemap for your online store
- Submitting the XML sitemap to Google Search Console
- Checking for and removing outdated widgets and third-party plugins.
7. Create Internal Links
Internal links improve navigation and help search engines understand the structure of your website. They are also useful for potential clients who are ready to make a purchase.
Strive to use descriptive anchor text when linking between pages. However, do not always use a complete keyword match for anchor text, as Google may treat is at over-optimisation.
8. Make User Experience Memorable
All the technical aspects of SEO cannot win the heart (and money) of a visitor who does not manage to navigate your Shopify store with ease. As hard as it may be to imagine, consider designing your site for someone who never browsed the internet before.
They must be able to focus on each element of the page, without overcrowding. They must be able to find the page they are looking for without clicking haphazardly through the site.
Finally, help the user know where they are and how to return to a previous page. Adding a breadcrumb menu to each page is the easiest way of doing it.
9. Build High Quality Backlinks
Backlinks are at the heart of Shopify SEO tactics. You cannot build authority, trust and relevance without other sites using your pages as reliable sources of information. You can earn goodwill and backlinks through:
- Guest posts
- Publishing high quality content on your blog
- Answering questions on public forums
10. Monitor and Analyse the Performance of Your Shopify Store
We cannot end our list of Shopify SEO tips without reminding you to download and analyse data using Google tools.
Here are the basic actions you need to take:
- Set up Google Analytics to track website traffic, user behaviour, and conversions.
- Get tailored reports to make informed decisions.
- Use Google Search Console to identify issues, monitor indexation, and receive insights into your site’s performance in search results
- Understand the structure of your website audience: age, sex, geographical area.
Main Takeaways
Implementing these effective Shopify SEO tactics can significantly enhance your e-commerce store’s visibility and drive organic traffic. Remember that SEO is an ongoing process, and staying up-to-date with industry trends and algorithm changes is essential for long-term success.
By following these strategies and adapting to the evolving SEO landscape, you can improve your rankings and ultimately boost your online store’s success and run a successful business.