Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most affordable, and most impactful strategies for pulling organic traffic to your Shopify store. The better your organic traffic, the more visits, and views, to your site. That can lead to more chances to make sales. Today we’re providing a list of five SEO best practices for Shopify to help make sure your eCommerce store is performing to the best of its ability.
What Is Shopify SEO?
Shopify SEO is the process of optimizing your Shopify website to perform better in search. It’s targeted specifically to helping eCommerce businesses who use the Shopify content management system (CMS) to improve their keyword rankings and organic search traffic. Shopify SEO can help you address some challenges that eCommerce stores have ranking in search, like:
5 SEO Best Practices for Shopify
Use these tips to help optimize your Shopify store for search engines:
1. Create a Custom Domain
Image via GIPHY by @RosannaPansino
Like other website builders, you can choose your Shopify domain name, but it’s branded with the provider’s “.myshopify” addition. Invest in a custom domain name to make your site look more professional. Online stores without the added second-level domain are often more enticing to users, which can lead to a better click-through rate (CTR) and performance on search engine results pages (SERPs).
2. Invest in Analytics Tools
Shopify has its own analytics dashboard that provides insights about your eCommerce metrics. If you want more information about how your site performs with search engines, it’s best to invest your time, money, or both into additional analytics programs. Google Analytics and Google Search Console are two free tools that can help you learn more about your performance online. You can add the Google Analytics tracking code to your Shopify store to collect the right data. You can also submit your store sitemap, which Shopify generates, to Google Search Console for better crawling.
3. Collect the Right Apps
There are plenty of SEO apps available for Shopify to help make sure you’re optimizing all parts of your online store as much as possible. Some options you have for Shopify SEO apps include:
- Yoast SEO: Previously a WordPress-only plugin, Shopify users can now use the service to optimize posts for keywords, page readability, and SEO-centric visual design.
- Plug In SEO: Similar to Yoast, this tool can help you fix common errors in things like headings, image alt tags, and filenames. It also provides Google Search Console integration.
- SEO Pro: This app is ideal for more advanced SEO, like sitemap issues. It includes a site scanner feature that looks at all pages of your eCommerce store and allows you to find and fix on-page SEO issues within the app.
4. Optimize Your Alt Text
Shopify eCommerce stores include a lot of photos. That’s helpful for browsers trying to find just the right product, but it actually does nothing for your search engine performance, without a few extra steps. Google and other search engines can’t “see” your images the way people do. They can only tell what’s in those images when you use the alt text feature. The best way to get Google to understand the photos is by using descriptive and keyword-rich file names and blurbs.
Optimizing your site images also makes your online store more accessible to shoppers with visual impairments. This can make your store more inviting to a larger audience and increase your chances of sales.
5. Use the Blog
Shopify’s blog feature is a great place to start or continue a content marketing strategy for your business. This feature allows you to go beyond being just an eCommerce store and also a valuable resource for your audience. You can use the blog to capture people at the top of the sales funnel and target long-tail keywords for which people may search.
If you’re looking for help to create the best blog posts for your niche or SEO-friendly product descriptions for your Shopify store, start a call with CopyPress. Our dedicated team of creatives and strategists are experts at developing killer content your audience, and search engines, love.
CopyPress
March 10, 2022
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