What Shopify Store Owners Need to Know About SEO?

The main purpose of this article is to share our knowledge on Shopify SEO.

This blog grew out of our experience working with Shopify and Shopify Plus store owners. At DCKAP, we provide a range of Shopify and Shopify Plus Services including integration services.

Once the Shopify implementation is done, the store owner's attention turns to traffic and sales. It is here that eCommerce SEO and advanced Technical SEO services come into the picture.

Who is this blog for?

If you are a Shopify owner struggling to improve your traffic and revenue, then this article is for you.  The aim of the blog is not to make you an expert in SEO but to introduce some of the basic SEO terms. It will help you understand and converse with an SEO consultant or an agency.

What is SEO?

Simply put, SEO forms the critical configuration and ongoing maintenance of a website to ensure its position in search engine results remains optimum. SEO will help build a findable website.

Connect your Shopify Store with Google Analytics

First things first – To measure and define your website audience it is always advised to connect your Shopify store and Google Analytics account. Once you login into your Shopify admin panel, in the path: online_store->preferences, you will find the text box to place the Google Analytics code. (Please see the screenshot below)

You can seek the help of your marketing person/team or development agency to the place the Google Analytics code here.

Factors of Shopify SEO

Main factors of Shopify SEO are,

Shopify offers you all the basic features of SEO like enter the Title & Description, Robots.txt, and Sitemap.xml. Many Shopify SEO apps which help to implement SEO are available in the Shopify store.

But, to have an SEO friendly store, you need to follow certain Technical procedures as summarized below.

Title and Description

The title tag has a dual purpose:

To show the user what the page is about

To show the engine what the page is about

Meta descriptions are the free advertisements webmasters get to include when their search results are included in a SERP.(Search Engine Results Page)

The two combined must make a compelling 'elevator pitch'.

Shopify allows you to enter the title and description. Check your Homepage title and meta description. This description shows up in the search engines when someone searches for your brand name in Google.

Below is the screenshot of Home Page Title and Description

Below is the screenshot of the Product Page Title and Description

Canonical URL

A canonical URL is a URL that you want visitors to see. It helps webmasters prevent duplicate content issues. It does this by specifying the "canonical URL", the "preferred" version of a web page. Using it well improves a site's SEO.

Most of the Shopify owners face the duplicate content issue in the initial stage of site launch. The best way to avoid this is to follow the insertion of Canonical URL.

Robots.txt

Robots.txt is a powerful tool you can use to control which pages search engines are allowed to crawl and how they are allowed to crawl them.

It is used to intimate Search Engine Bot not to crawl some URL formats like Sorting URL, Filter URL.

Shopify automatically generates the robots.txt file, and you can find that on (yoursite.com/robots.txt)

Sitemaps

The sitemap can give you a quick idea of the URL formation of the website.

Shopify store automatically generates the Sitemap. You can find the sitemap.xml file at (yoursite.com/sitemap.xml). Always check the sitemap file twice in a month for any 404 error URLs.

Content optimization

Content is king. Content includes all stuff in your store, everything from the product descriptions you read, to the pictures and videos you view, to the audio you listen to.

Content plays a vital role in your SEO part, Guiding the right audience to the right page leads to increase your conversion rate.

The following are some of the optimal ways to achieve content optimization:

Choosing right keywords

Engaging content

Appropriate Images and ALT tag for that images

Attractive and relevant titles/descriptions

Choosing Right Keywords

The mantra of search engines is Keywords, Keywords, and Keywords. Select your focus keyword with more care as that is the primary factor which will drive traffic to your store. There are a number of ways to select your focus keywords, and below are a couple of quick guidelines…

Competitors Keyword Analysis and choosing your keywords

Keyword Tool to know your major and minor keywords

Engaging Content

Once after you select your keywords, you have to place them in the right place like in the heading tags. The H1 tag contains the main focus keyword, and other heading tags includes the associated with focusing keywords. Also, the keyword stuffing needs to be less than 2% in the over the content volume.

Appropriate Images and ALT tag for that images

Always use the exact image that represents the content. Google Bots don't read the image pattern, and so they crawl the Alt Tag text. The best practice is to enter Alt Text in an image tag.

Attractive and Relevant Title Tags/Descriptions

It is important to have engaging content in the Title and Description so that it will prompt the user to click and enter into your store.

We have just given a glimpse of how SEO can be used by Shopify store owners to rank at the top of Google, grow their business and make money online. It's a matter of having up-to-date information on how Google works, using effective SEO techniques and taking action.

SEO is a vast ocean, and we have just picked some pretty pebbles and shining shells lying on the seashore. This article could be your first step at the beginning of a long, interesting, and challenging journey.

If you would like DCKAP to be your partner in the Shopify SEO journey, we will be more than happy to join you… Just get in touch with us.