Have you ever wished there was a guide to SEO for Shopify that could help you understand the ins and outs of this unique platform? If so, keep reading as we dive into the basics of SEO and how it applies to Shopify stores. This guide is your starting point if you’re new to both SEO in general and Shopify in particular. We're here to help demystify SEO for Shopify stores.
SEO can be a very competitive field and one that can be quite confusing. With all of the backlinking, keyword density, page ranks, and site maps to understand SEO is not an easy thing to break down. But I am going to do my best in this post to explain SEO as it relates to Shopify specifically. I will cover some great resources at the end you can look at to take your SEO knowledge further.
Site Structure
Digging into Shopify's technical details, you can see how site-structure could be an issue. Shopify uses render-blocking CSS stylesheets, JavaScripts and they use client-side caching to save bandwidth to their customers. This could potentially be problematic for SEO because of the way it works with Google's crawler.
SEO can be difficult for Shopify stores because not every page is indexable. By implementing an internal linking structure and using blog posts to build links, you can increase your domain authority while also improving the user experience on your store.
A complete SEO Shopify site should be structured in a way so that related content is grouped together (i.e.: products pertaining to the same category). For example, on an ecommerce website, it makes sense to group your products by category, rather then have all of them displayed on the home page (unless you are using a mega-categories theme).
URL Structure
Did you know that the URL structure of a Shopify site has a significant impact on SEO? It is one of the most undervalued and underrated factors that you can use to improve the performance of your site. A well structred URL is the cornerstone of good content, and it's just as important as your text. The URL should include the relevant keywords that you want to rank for in search.
Product Pages
Let's face it, product pages are the most important pages on your site. With a low overall conversion rate of about 2%, it's important you follow Shopify's SEO best practices when creating product pages. The most important thing to remember is that every page should be unique. Optimize Product Pages will help you do just that. Here is a list of SEO factors on product pages on the Shopify platform.
Product Description for SEO
A well optimized product description has undergone a number of changes over the last couple years. In the past, or within some industries, it’s been required to have these in order to be found on Google. However, with more advanced algorithms being put in place at the search engine level and the increased importance of user experience and satisfaction there has been a different approach taken for product descriptions within e-commerce stores.
Optimizing your product descriptions for search is still vital because of the amount of sway these descriptions can have over your customers. Writing great product descriptions can have a huge impact on your online sales, conversion rates, and profits,
Automate Product Descriptions
At Syntax IQ, we offer a tool that automates your product description generation with keywords relevant to your business. This will help you optimize your product descriptions for search engines. It is a practical, straightforward tool that doesn't fill pages with fluff or jargon.
Title Tags
You can optimize your title tags by using keywords that are relevant to your website in them. It is a common misconception that the title tag is only important as far as it is displayed with anchor text, but this is incorrect. To be successful with SEO you want to optimize both on page and off page elements, and title tags are a big one.
Title tags are also important for click through rates in search. The title tag is like the advertisement for your website. No one will click on your ad if the headline or call to action doesn’t peak your interest. Titles that are optimized can help boost your clicks and conversions.
Content Marketing For Ecommerce
Content marketing is the use of quality, original content that attracts an audience to your business while supporting ancillary products. Content takes many forms on the internet, from blog posts and articles about industry trends to videos and webinars.
Ecommerce content marketing has the potential to provide rich, nutritionally-dense food for the hungry search engine optimization soul. You can build valuable and trusted organic links using a variety of strategies.