Shopify store owners who are new to the market usually come across the issue of not generating enough traffic to their stores.
Most non-technical people may never know the fact that Shopify SEO is not that difficult a task. Want to know how to get those customers to your store? Then read till the end.
Checklist to Improve Shopify SEO
Here is a checklist of 11 quick actions you can perform manually without having the technical knowledge of creating stores to improve your Shopify store’s performance and start getting visitors on your website:
- Optimize your product page.
- Connect your Products Page from the Home Page
- Update your keywords.
- Take care of your Technical SEO
- Add product images
- Add product videos
- Delete or hide abandoned carts.
- Add social proof, reviews, and testimonials.
- Test your headlines.
- Rewrite your meta descriptions
- Test your checkout process.
Did you know you can do most of the tasks through a tool? Check out our Shopify PIM.
1. Optimize your product page
In today’s SEO, Product pages are the most important parts of eCommerce stores.
Just three years ago, Google’s algorithm focused on individual pages (pages of content). However today Google looks at a product’s entire page — product title, URL, meta title, meta description, etc.
Before ranking, you want to have a compelling and unique title for each product. For example, if your product has 10 different color variations, use variations of the color in the title.
For example, “Navy Blue / Emerald Green/ Purple / Pink”.
You want to use the exact product name in the description.
For example, “Nike Men’s Air Max 90 iD QS in Navy / Purple / Pink / Emerald Green.”
The Google algorithm pays close attention to the meta description.
This is the text that appears below the URL and in search results. You want to use keywords, but make sure it’s compelling. For example, a description that doesn’t include “Special Offer!” is unlikely to get clicks.
You want to use one URL per product (i.e., the permalink).
For example, “https://www.pink-shoe.com/nike-mens-air-max-90-id-qs-in-navy-pink-pink-emerald-green.”
Use keywords in your URL.
For example, “Nike Men’s Air Max 90 iD QS in Navy / Purple / Pink
If you’re new to Shopify, read our detailed guide on How does Shopify work?
2. Connect your Products Page with Home Page
Your home page is usually the focal point of your website and the most powerful of all the pages. Including navigation links on your homepage provides a clear path for users to navigate around your store, regardless of its structure. This, then, helps enhance the SEO of your Shopify store.
Many store owners make the mistake of not linking to their collection pages (also known as category pages) from their home page. As a result, your crucial pages may be hidden deep within the store, making it difficult for users to find them.
Of course, if you have a small number of products, connecting to each one rather than forcing a visitor to visit a collection page first can be more useful. If you have more than a few dozen products, you might consider assigning them to collections. A guide to collections and how to create them can be found in the Shopify help center.
Ensure that all of your major collection or product pages are accessible from the homepage’s top. You’re putting some of your most important sites in easy reach of your visitors by doing so. You may also include a search box.
3. Update your keywords
Using the right keywords through Shopify SEO tools in your Shopify store’s title, description, and meta tags can increase your search rankings, leading to more traffic and sales.
Keywords are the words people use to search for products on search engines like Google. When users type in what they want to buy into the search box, search engines look for matching items. The search engine then returns a list of web pages that might contain the product.
Title tags
The title tag is the first thing users see when they visit your site. They’ll also get a snippet of text when they share your pages on social media.
This is where you tell search engines what your page is about. Your title should include your keywords, but it’s best to avoid keyword stuffing if you plan to optimize for the SEO of your Shopify store; a keyword or phrase should make up no more than 25% of your title.
Description
The meta description is the second line of text that appears beneath your title on search engine results pages. It’s what shoppers see when they decide not to click over to your page.
This is where you tell your story and present your product in the most people-friendly way possible. This is your chance to really sell your product.
Meta tags (Shopify SEO keywords)
Meta tags appear below your title tag and between your description and body text. They’re designed to give search engines more information about the page or product they’re listing.
Keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing refers to the practice, often found in blog posts, of repeating a keyword or phrase over and over. For example, someone might write, “The best 10 ways to save money” or “the best way to save money.”
4. Take care of your Technical SEO
Any Search Engine Optimization activities/elements that do not include the content aspect are referred to as technical SEO.
A webmaster must maintain the following things with correct search engine recommendations in technical SEO:
- Checking the robots.txt file to see if it prevents bots from crawling the site.
- Ascertaining that the site has a sitemap.xml file and submitting it to Google Search Console.
- Creating and confirming your Google Search Console account.
- Creating and putting Google Analytics in place.
- HTML and CSS validation.
- Identifying and resolving any crawl faults and reroute issues.
- Use of header tags correctly (H1, H2, H3, and so on).
- Canonical tags and domain canonicalization should be used correctly.
5. Add product images
You’re missing out on a significant SEO opportunity if you’re not optimizing the photos on your Shopify site. The photos on your website have the power to enlighten, inspire, and leave a lasting impact on visitors. By including alternative text (alt-text) and using the proper picture sizes, you not only meet Google’s requirements but also improve the user experience for everyone.
If you own a single store you can use tools like Avada SEO suite and Image Optimizer to optimize your store.
If you own multiple stores and need help optimizing all your images in one click try a PIM software like Apimio
A product experience management tool, like Apimio, could be a very beneficial option at this point. Apimio allows you to optimize your product images for your Shopify store. It let you meet the requirements of your image data quality for standards of different e-commerce platforms.
6. Add product videos.
Videos are a fantastic way to increase conversions on your Shopify store.
In the early days, social media was the way e-commerce stores used videos to market their products. Today, however, with the rise of widespread smartphone use, video has become an essential part of the e-commerce shopping experience.
According to Google, 85% of people use YouTube while searching for videos.
Approximately 80% of users say that watching a video makes them more confident in making a purchase.
Also, video is 40 times more likely to appear on the first page of Google search results than text or images.
With those numbers in mind, it’s clear why e-commerce store owners need to be using video. However, not all videos are created equal.
When you begin adding videos to your Shopify store, it’s important to consider the following:
- Video quality
- Video hosting
- Length of video
- Video quality
7. Delete or hide abandoned carts
Shopify stores have abandoned carts. This is a fact, and it’s normal. Deleting or hiding abandoned cards could increase the SEO of your Shopify store.
Abandoned carts often represent lost revenue, so it’s important to recover them. But how can you do that on Shopify? It’s easier than you think.
It’s up to you whether to delete them or leave them visible. If you do leave them visible, you’ve got an opportunity to recover some of the lost sales.
First, log in to your Shopify admin panel and navigate to Settings > Checkout. You’ll see a screen like the one below.
Click on the Shopping Carts tab. You’ll see a list of the people who have added products to their shopping carts. Click on a person’s name to see their cart.
On the following screen, you can delete or hide an abandoned cart.
Alternatively, you can enable “Promoted Products” in your store’s theme, which automatically shows related products alongside your shopping cart.
8. Add social proof, reviews, and testimonials
There are plenty of ways to build your brand, but one of the most powerful is to display social proof. Bets way to do is by embedding your Instagram posts on the pages of your website.
That’s a fancy way of saying that showcasing others’ experiences with your brand can convince potential customers that it’s the right choice for them.
Start by including testimonials from customers on your website and marketing materials.
Then, provide a section in your store for reviews. Highlight positive reviews — both positive and neutral — and feature negative ones prominently, with an explanation about why someone decided against using your products or services.
Finally, add social proof, such as the number of people following you on social media, the number of followers you have, or the number of participants in your customer loyalty program.
These metrics not only encourage potential customers to buy but also boost your brand’s credibility and suggest a sense of longevity.
Source: KharaKapas
9. Test your headlines
Your headline is the single most important thing on your product listing page. This is the text that shows up in search results and attracts customers.
The problem is that many Shopify store owners treat their headline like an afterthought, choosing whatever text shows up first in their template.
That’s not good.
For starters, if you don’t optimize your headline, your search results won’t be optimized, either.
Shopify’s internal search tool uses your store’s HTML to find product pages. If that text doesn’t match the product title, your pages won’t show up in search results.
Worse, a customer who stumbles upon your product while browsing your store may assume it’s not what they were looking for. They won’t be looking at your description, so they don’t have sufficient context to make an informed decision.
Second, if your headline doesn’t clearly communicate what your product does, you could miss out on sales.
If your headline says, “Women’s shoes,” and you’re selling mens’ shoes, expect a lot of orders to default to your competitors.
Third, an optimized headline can help eliminate click fraud.
If a customer lands on your product listing page and can’t figure out if it matches what they’re looking for, they might change their mind and leave your page.
In e-commerce, that can translate into lost sales.
Finally, an optimized headline can increase your SEO ranking.
Search engines like Google use keywords to help match searchers with pages that meet their requirements.
Checkout this Helpful method of how to decide what to show on Titles for Product Pages:
10. Rewrite your meta descriptions
Your Shopify store’s meta description is the first line of text Google displays in the search results. This text is what differentiates your store from the search results page, and it’s also the first thing customers see.
Shopify’s meta description text field is under 150 characters, which means you need to pack a lot of punch into that small space.
You can use your Shopify store’s meta description text to summarize your Shopify store’s main features and to persuade customers to visit your store.
Before you start optimizing your Shopify meta description, you need to know who you’re targeting.
If you’re selling a children’s toy, for example, don’t write a meta description that includes words like “high quality” and “high end.” Instead, write a copy that appeals to parents.
Also Read: Multi-Lingual Ecommerce on Shopify stores
11. Test your checkout process
The checkout process is the last hurdle for your customer, and it’s the most important. It determines whether they abandon their shopping cart or follow through with the purchase.
When you optimize the SEO of your Shopify store’s checkout process, you make it as easy as possible for customers to make a purchase.
The checkout process is the one area in your Shopify store where you can add the most value to your business. You have the opportunity to turn customers away by making it too difficult, or you can turn them away from your competitors by making it too easy.
Although your checkout process will affect your conversion rate, it’s not the only factor that determines the revenue you make from each sale. Your Shopify store has to support the sale of your products, and you also need to make sure that customers actually complete their purchases.
Optimizing your checkout process starts with testing your checkout process.
Check out 10 ways you can reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment and increase sales.
Testing your checkout process is one of the simplest ways to improve your conversion rate and your revenue. Once you understand how your customers interact with your checkout process, you can make changes to your checkout process to optimize it.
Source: GymShark
Conclusion
There are no shortcuts to building a successful e-commerce store. Shopify SEO is a long, grinding process that involves making a lot of decisions — some that you’ll have to make over and over again — and following through on them.
But there are also lots of pieces of the puzzle that fall into your lap, and you’ll find yourself making fewer of them as time goes on. But with these steps, you are definitely many steps closer to your Shopify success.
