Starting a Shopify store and successfully running it for years is a dream come true for many. But only a few out of many succeed in making their online store a sustainable online business.
If look five years back, in 2017 there was a sudden spike in the graph of Shopify users. People started making online stores with the motive to earn money (the prime motive of every business).
However, more than half of those online stores failed miserably. Do you know the reasons behind their failure? Well, there were many but the greatest of them all was the lack of SEO (search engine optimization). Most of the Shopify stores which died were dependent on paid and social marketing for traffic.
However, more traffic that an online business could possibly drive comes through the search engines. I hope you know this fact!
The search engines account for an approx. 93% of the total traffic for a search query. Hence, if you are the owner of a Shopify store, you should not underestimate the true potential of the engines, Google is the greatest of them all.
In this post, I will take you through a detailed Shopify SEO Guide that will speak about the best SEO tips you need to improve the ranking of your online store on Google.
What is Shopify SEO?
Before jumping straight to Shopify SEO, I would like to tell you what SEO basically is about.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization which simply means to improve the visibility of a website on search engines. The deeper SEO techniques are applied on a site the better SERP ranking will surface.
Now, coming back to where we started – Shopify SEO.
Shopify is a platform just like WordPress. The only key area that makes Shopify different is the inclusion of advanced eCommerce-specific functionalities.
The way we do SEO for any other website, the same SEO strategies and techniques should be applied to a Shopify website. Hence, Shopify SEO means optimizing a Shopify store as per the search engine guidelines.
The eCommerce platform comes with a blog feature on which companies can write engaging and keyword-targeted articles to drive organic store traffic. However, the structure of a Shopify store needs to be optimized for better results.
When a website is ranked on the first page of Google, it gets enormously huge traffic over a period of time. Likewise, if an online store also manages to rank on the first page, imagine the amount of revenue the store could generate via sales. It could be an insane number!
Although, Shopify has some built-in SEO-friendly features you can’t just rely on them completely. You have to put extra effort into improving the SERP rankings of your store. But the question is – how to do that?
So, to make things easy for you I have discussed a few methods through which you can exaggerate Shopify SEO.
Best Shopify SEO Tips to Get Huge Sales in 2022
Sale is the only thing that keeps a business going on for a long. If the sales number goes down, the business suffers. And in some cases, it could even shut entirely.
And I don’t think you will want that to happen with your own eCommerce store. So, without waiting more let me take you through the best Shopify SEO Guide which will aid in improving the ranking of your Shopify store.
1. Optimize the Shopify Store’s Site Structure
SEO success is usually determined by how well optimized the content is all over a website. When online shoppers finally find things they have been searching for all over the Internet on a site. They stick to it for a longer time, browse through different pages and make transactions to buy what they like.
However, the online visitors only stick to a shopping site where the site structure is easy to navigate. They should know on which page they are and what the next page they would like to browse is.
Answer this! Would you ever visit a site whose structure just clutters around? I guess, no. Well, I would never visit such a website, especially when I want to buy something online.
If you want your Shopify store to be a huge success, which I am sure you eagerly want! Make your store easy to navigate. It means when a shopper visits your store don’t confuse the person with too many categories and sub-categories.
The shopper has visited you because the need is for something particular, show the person what he wants. It’s as simple as that!
If you have bombarded your store with plenty of categories, it will only create confusion. And a confused mind never buys. Result? The potential shopper will bounce back. I hope you don’t want that.
Try to keep it simple. A simpler site structure doesn’t confuse online buyers. They already know what they want and you are offering that on your site without diverting their mind to other options. The sale will come without saying!
A simple, non-cluttered site structure is liked by all the major search engines including Google. If you are selling different products that fall under different categories, try keeping as minimum categories as possible.
It is not bad to categorize things on the website. But then, too many of them are just not good either. The maximum you can keep is two categories or three, maybe, and lots of products under those categories. But it is better if you can skip adding sub-categories to your Shopify store.
You have built the store to run a business and make some good money in lieu of your efforts, it is digestible. But to fulfill this dream of yours, you need to have the best site structure in place.
An ideal Shopify site structure is like this:
Homepage >> Category Pages >> Products Pages
An easy-to-navigate site structure will make your store worthy to visit. And, when you optimize your website for the people. Google likes it and it automatically boosts the Shopify SEO. Hence, it should be your top priority to optimize the Shopify store’s site structure for ensuring the maximum organic reach of your online store.
2. Research the Right Target Keywords
Keyword research and targeting are an integral part of a Shopify SEO guide. No guide would be picture-perfect in its truancy. The foundation of a fortunate SEO strategy is laid on keywords. Without the right keywords placed on your Shopify store, you cannot expect search engines to rank it.
I always recommend rundown intensive keyword research before starting a website. It helps in streamlining other tasks and the ranking doesn’t seem to be a far-reaching objective. You can get the best results by keeping yourself in the customer’s shoes and reverberating with their feelings of search intention.
The searchers’ intent is a deciding factor in the entire process of keyword research. The things that matter to you might not matter to the searcher while putting the query in the Google search box. Keywords that are of great significance to you might be possible that your target audience is not even searching them on the Internet.
Researching the right keywords is not just a step that you must follow in your Shopify SEO guide but it’s a necessity. Without which things would not be able to go further viably. The occupancy of even the slightest deviation in what your audience is searching and the keywords that you are using on your Shopify store could cost you the business.
For example, you run a Shopify sneaker store that only sells sneakers of different kinds. If you are only using keywords revolving around ‘shoes’ like – best shoes under $100 or cheap shoes or best shoes in the USA, things might not work great for you.
On the other hand, if you are using keywords such as – best sneaker store, best sneaker company in the USA, good Jordan sneakers, and more keywords like them, the chances of your store ranking for user search intent revolving around ‘sneakers’ are higher.
How to do Right Keyword Research?
By now, I hope you know that keywords have a critical role to play in optimizing the Shopify store for SEO. Now, I will tell you the exact ways through which the industry leaders analyze, evaluate and implement well-researched keywords in their websites.
The points written down will help you research keywords the ideal way:
- Know exactly what your business is about and write the major products or services that your business would be engaged in.
- In the second step, know your target audience, and their demographics including age, location, interests, gender, occupation, etc.
- Develop a few buyer personas. It will help you to think almost the same way your target audience is thinking right now.
- Find some public forums, log in, and analyze what your prospects are discussing about things that you are offering via your Shopify store.
- Go to social media networking sites (preferably Instagram & Facebook) to see what the trending #hashtags are related to your business nature. Those hashtags possibly are some of your high-converting keywords on the search engines.
- Research and analyze the content and keyword strategy that your competitors are already using on their Shopify stores.
- Run down keyword research using tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahref, and Semrush to know the volume of keywords that you are willing to finalize.
- Always keep a mix of keywords. This means, try keeping some keywords that have higher competition, some which have medium competition, and some with low competition. It will help you to get good organic reach.
Hence, keeping the ideal keywords closer to your Shopify store is the second most important thing in the Shopify SEO guide.
3. Enhance the User Experience
The best SEO for Shopify cannot be done without ensuring a top-notch user experience. If your store’s user experience is good, it’s awesome. But if your store lacks it, here, I will tell you about the ways through which you can improve it.
If an online buyer lands on your Shopify store that doesn’t have an ideal user interface. The user won’t even wait for a second more to go back to find another store offering a great user experience. If you are ignoring this SEO ranking factor, you will never be able to rank your store on Google.
There are a few factors that hamper the experience of a user while surfing an eCommerce website. Some of them are as follows:
Site Speed:Â
Before the content of a site, site speed matters today. A user will not leave a website or an online store when all the pages of a site are loading swiftly. No buyer wants to browse a store that has good products but increases the surfing and purchasing time of the users.
Although the hosting is provided by Shopify itself if you are using heavy images, videos, framework, or themes, the speed of your Shopify store could go extremely sluggish aggressively. Things you should avoid improving the speed of your Shopify eCommerce store are as follows:
- Use small-sized images and optimize them as per the keywords
- Use an SEO-friendly theme that fits well with your store
- Don’t incorporate sliders on your Shopify store as they call for a slow site speed
- Delete apps or plugins that you think are not helping you the way you want
Responsive Design:
A Shopify site has a responsive design when it appears the same way on all devices including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. The structure and layout are not compromised if a site is responsive. It improves the user experience as the online buyers can shop from your store using any device they have at that time.
Nowadays, you don’t have to put in extra effort for making the site responsive. If you are using an SEO-friendly and responsive theme, it gets the job done effectively. Every search engine likes a well-hosted, SEO-friendly and responsive site. A highly responsive site is pushed into the recommendations of people by Google itself, meeting other important SEO factors, remember!
If your Shopify store is well-built and responsive, users will browse through it more often, increasing the average time-spent sessions by a remarkable figure. When the search engine will experience that users are coming and spending more time on your site, the SEO of the Shopify store will improve, increasing the chances of ranking for various keywords.
Hence, both site speed and responsiveness will enhance your store’s value in the eyes of all major search engines as you are valuing the experience of their users.
4. Optimize Store’s Product Pages
Before coming to this stage, you must have a website that has everything from a responsive design, SEO-friendly theme, an optimized site structure or site hierarchy, and a bucket list of the right keywords in place.
Now, coming to the product pages, they are the most important part of your Shopify store. And, because of it, they should be given priority while optimizing the Shopify site for SEO. The better optimized your product pages are the more the chances of them ranking on Google.
You cannot expect your product pages to get a higher ranking on the SERP (search engine result pages) in absence of the optimal SEO optimization. All the major keywords that matter for your business should be wisely placed on the product pages in form of well-written content.
Furthermore, among all of the product pages, priority should be given to those which are your high-ticket pages. Product pages that host the most valuable products should be optimized first. While the pages having products whose worth is relatively less should be optimized afterward.
This is an ideal practice as it enhances the chances of conversions going further. Apart from that, the homepage of your Shopify store (whether it contains a collection of products or just a marketing copy) should also be optimized on priority along with the product pages. A homepage with a few top-selling products coupled with a keyword-rich marketing copy is a must.
Meta titles of all the pages must be optimized by including the right keywords. While it’s better if the Meta descriptions contain a keyword-specific marketing copy. It will entice both online buyers and search engines. Remember to optimize title tags for categories, pages, and their descriptions with original content, else it won’t be a classic SEO practice.
5. Focus on Building Quality Backlinks
Building backlinks is a part of off-page SEO. Although off-page SEO usually stands last in the SEO marketing strategy. But to establish your Shopify store as an authoritative site in the eyes of search engines, you need a bunch of quality backlinks.
The quality backlinks pass on a signal to the engines that your site has valuable stuff overloaded. It further increases the chances of ranking the site on the SERP. In absence of backlinks, the SEO of the Shopify site won’t stand complete.
However, simply linking your site back to another source won’t suffice. The backlinks should always come from a premium source. This means the domain and site authority of websites linking back to your Shopify store should be pretty higher. Also, the referring sites should be relevant to what you are selling on Shopify and have a considerable amount of active traffic.
Building a network of backlinks to your website is not a short-term game. It requires a lot of time, effort, and analysis to make it happen. Backlinks do two jobs at the same time. The first we have already discussed above i.e., helping engines to recognize your Shopify site as an authority. The second one perhaps is the most important i.e., brand awareness.
Brand awareness comes to life in several ways. Out of those backlinking is one of the crucial methods. Finding a relevant site or a public forum with great traffic and authority, leaving there the do-follow link of your Shopify store could just do wonders. Hence, the best Shopify SEO tips and strategies should always have the provision for quality backlinks.
6. Practice Content Marketing to Improve SEO9
Content marketing works great when combined with the SEO strategy. Content marketing is composed of two things – content creation and marketing. If you manage to create fresh content targeting the primary keywords and market it through the right medium, your Shopify store can see a great surge in traffic too early.
In this digital era, the thing that is helping businesses get great numbers in traffic is content. If you are able to tap on it the right way, trust me, you could drive immense traffic even to your brand-new Shopify store.
By writing new content on less competitive long-tail keywords you can rank your store on Google. However, the primary keywords should exactly reflect what you are selling. It will be beneficial for you in the long run. Moreover, Shopify comes with an additional feature of a blog, where you can post fresh articles, guides, and how-to, again related to your Shopify products or services.
The concept of content marketing is not just limited to blogs, articles, or web content. You can also create engaging, enlightening content for your store’s social media handles. Social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can help you market your business adroitly.
The engaging content helps businesses from corners of the world to get their target audience to spend more time on their sites. And when users stick to a site for longer durations, engines understand that there is something valuable and rank-worthy on those sites. This automatically helps in improving the SEO and SERP ranking of the business websites.
If you will create high-quality and keyword-targeted content for your Shopify blog, you can drive crazy traffic if the content gets ranked on the search engines. Businesses around the world underestimate the power of content marketing. However, it is one of the best practices I would like to include in this Shopify SEO guide.
7. Use Best Shopify SEO Tools
There are many tools through which you can optimize your Shopify store for SEO. Through SEO tools and plugins, you can even optimize the Meta titles, descriptions of the product categories, pages, and blogs to further improve Shopify SEO.
Also, as your Shopify store might host hundreds of high-quality images, you must optimize them too to the store’s SEO right. With tools like Yoast SEO, Plugin SEO Optimizer, SEO Image Optimizer, and Smart SEO you can simply optimize different parts of your Shopify store.
To Conclude:Â
The Shopify store needs to be optimized as per the search engine guidelines. Without it, it would be challenging for you to get your store ranked on Google and all other major search engines.
This Shopify SEO guide contains the best SEO tips that you can use to enhance the visibility of your store on the SERPs. Each and every step that I have discussed above in detail should be part of your Shopify SEO strategy. I hope that this post will help you to rank your Shopify store and get more sales over time.
