Search Engine Optimisation Shopify: Overcome Challenges and Thrive

Shopify store owners often struggle with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), but it's a crucial step in getting your online store noticed. According to a study, 70% of online shopping experiences begin with a search engine.

To overcome these challenges, you need to understand how Shopify's platform affects your SEO. Shopify's default settings can sometimes hinder your store's visibility, but with the right adjustments, you can improve your ranking.

A key area to focus on is product page optimization, as this is where most customers start their shopping journey. By optimizing your product pages with relevant keywords and descriptions, you can increase your chances of appearing in search results.

With the right strategies in place, you can overcome the challenges of SEO on Shopify and start thriving. By following the tips and best practices outlined in this article, you can improve your online store's visibility and drive more sales.

Before you start optimizing your Shopify store for search engines, you need to set up some basic aspects of your website. Completing these tasks will prepare your website for search optimization.

First, take time to set up your Shopify store's basic aspects, including technical, on-page, and off-page SEO. This will ensure your website is ready for search engine optimization.

To prepare your website, you need to complete the Shopify SEO essentials mentioned earlier. These tasks will lay the foundation for your search engine optimization efforts.

Shopify SEO essentials include setting up basic aspects of your store, which will prepare your website for search optimization. By completing these tasks, you'll be well on your way to improving your store's visibility in search engine results.

To get your Shopify store search engine optimized, you need to pay attention to your theme and design. Using a mobile-ready theme is crucial, as Google assesses your website's content via a mobile view.

A responsive store theme, like the Dawn theme, is a popular option that automatically adjusts to the user's device and screen size. This means your website will look great on any device, from smartphones to desktops.

Shopify users can access a selection of free and paid responsive themes for their websites. To make sure your theme is mobile-friendly, use Google's content auditing tool, Lighthouse.

Discover more: Content Marketing and Search Engine Optimization

Using a mobile-ready theme is crucial for a great online store experience. Google assesses your website's content via a mobile view, so it's essential to make sure your store is optimized for search.

The Dawn theme is a popular option for Shopify users, and it's a great choice because it's responsive, meaning your website automatically adjusts to the user's device and screen size.

You can also access a selection of free and paid responsive themes for your website through Shopify.

Creating subcollections can be a simple solution to some common issues in Shopify. Breadcrumbs in Shopify don't support canonical URLs effectively, leading to multiple non-canonical URLs for products that appear under different collections.

One of the main challenges of creating subcollections is the lack of URL hierarchy. This can cause problems with SEO, as products may appear under different collections, creating multiple non-canonical URLs.

Here's a simple solution to this problem: creating a clear URL hierarchy for your subcollections. This can be achieved by organizing your products in a logical and consistent manner, making it easier for search engines to understand your website's structure.

By creating a clear URL hierarchy, you can improve your website's SEO and make it easier for customers to find what they're looking for.

Technical SEO is all about making your Shopify store more accessible and attractive to search engines like Google. This involves under-the-hood changes to your store, ensuring your web pages load quickly, are visible to search engine crawlers, and are accessible on mobile devices.

Technical SEO tasks for Shopify store owners include creating logical menus and internal links, submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console, and optimizing your store's images. These tasks will go a long way to making your store search-friendly.

A technical SEO audit involves identifying and eliminating technical errors, bringing your site up to optimal parameters that meet search engine requirements. This process involves several stages: identification of a technical error, preparation of a technical task to fix the error, correction of the technical error, and verification of the task completion.

You can automate and expedite the audit process using special tools, which are listed in our Shopify SEO Checklist. These tools can save you time and effort while boosting your SEO.

To fix technical errors, you need to identify them first. A technical SEO specialist can help you identify and eliminate these errors, bringing your site up to optimal parameters that meet search engine requirements.

Here are some key technical SEO requirements to consider:

To optimize your Shopify store's site structure, make sure that both Google's crawler and users don't see unnecessary versions of your URLs. You can do this by keeping your site structure simple with SEO-friendly structured data.

Clean URLs are better for usability and SEO. They are short, simple, and easy to understand. You can edit the URL in the “Edit Website SEO” area for each page, post, or product on your site to clean up those URLs and keep them focused on keywords.

On-page SEO is a crucial aspect of search engine optimization for Shopify stores. It involves creating and publishing high-quality content on your store's web pages that clearly signals relevance and authority to search engines.

To optimize on-page SEO, start by researching keywords and understanding the topic behind them. This will help you create comprehensive and relevant content that targets your desired search queries. Use your main keyword in page titles, especially for collection pages and landing pages, and incorporate relevant keywords into your page descriptions.

For product pages, include product details like price, availability, and ratings in structured data to enhance your search listings and increase click-through rates. Use Shopify's free themes or schema apps to add structured data to your product pages. To optimize your image file names and alt text, name your images in plain language that matches the page's keyword, and write alt text that works for screen readers and search engines.

Here are some key on-page SEO tasks for Shopify store owners:

Shopify automatically serves images in WebP, a format developed by Google that provides superior compression, with an average saving of more than 30% in file size over traditional file formats like JPEG and PNG. This is a great start to optimizing your images.

To further optimize, use Shopify's free image resizer to reduce the size of your images without compromising resolution. This will help with speedy loading and smooth browsing.

Adding images to your sitemap is also vital, as it makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index them. Many people are visual searchers, especially when it comes to products like apparel.

Writing alt text for every image is crucial, as it appears when a browser can't properly render an image, or when a user has web accessibility settings enabled. Use plain language to describe each of your store's images.

Naming your images in plain language is also important, with the file name matching a page's keyword. For example, if your page is about habanero hot sauce, save your image files as "habanero-hot-sauce.jpg".

Here's a quick checklist to optimize your images:

Good on-page SEO is about clearly signaling the relevance and authority of your content, while providing helpful responses to common searches. Good metadata is essential to achieving this.

To optimize metadata, ask yourself questions like "Does this heading clearly explain what is on the page?" and "Am I using my target keyword in subheadings?" This will help you create clear and concise metadata that accurately represents your content.

Follow these five tips to help optimize the metadata of your store's web pages:

The meta description should be a concise summary of the page's content, and should entice users to click on the page.

Discover more: On Page Search Engine Optimisation

Off-page SEO is a crucial aspect of search engine optimization for Shopify stores. It focuses on building high-quality backlinks from other reputable sources to improve your site's ranking.

Off-page SEO tasks for Shopify store owners include active and passive link building. Active link building is a proactive approach to generate inbound links from other websites. Passive link building, on the other hand, involves waiting for other websites to link to you.

To create a robust link-building plan, you can try the following methods: monitoring unlinked mentions of your business and reaching out to request links. This can be done using tools like Google Alerts.

See what others are reading: Back Link Building

A robust link profile should focus on placing links and brand mentions on high-authority websites that receive significant traffic and are thematically relevant. You can analyze the backlink profile of a top-ranking category using tools like Ahrefs and SE Ranking.

Ahrefs' Domain Rank (DR) and SE Ranking's Domain Trust (DT) are modern tools that measure the number and quality of external links to a website. These tools can help you effectively analyze and improve your website's backlink profile.

Here are the key aspects of a successful link-building strategy:

By following these guidelines, you can enhance your website's authority and search engine rankings, driving more traffic and sales to your Shopify store.

Organic and paid search clicks from Google bring in the most sales to your online store, outperforming social media campaigns. This is because search results catch the user in the moment they are looking to buy.

To maximize your Shopify store's online visibility, take advantage of marketing and SEO tools. These tools are simple to install and run without compatibility difficulties, thanks to Shopify's connected apps and tools.

Shopify includes excellent SEO features, such as the ability to modify meta tags, products, and descriptions in the browser in an SEO-friendly manner. This flexibility makes it easy to optimize your store's content for search engines.

Making your store public is a crucial step in getting your products seen by customers. If you're still building your Shopify store, it's a good idea to complete the construction before unlocking it to the public.

You should adjust the settings of any password-protected pages when you're ready to launch. This is because search engines won't be able to see your content and rank your pages if they're hidden behind a password.

Discover more: Public Google Drive Search Engine

Maintaining a Social Media Presence is crucial for building relationships with customers and encouraging links in the form of shares.

To keep an active social media presence, you need to engage genuinely with customers and participate in conversations. This helps to build trust and credibility with your audience.

Maintain a consistent tone and voice across all your social media platforms to create a cohesive brand image. This will help you to be recognizable and memorable to your customers.

Engage with customers by responding promptly to their comments and messages. This shows that you value their feedback and care about their concerns.

By participating in conversations and sharing relevant content, you can encourage links in the form of shares and likes. This can help to increase your online visibility and reach a wider audience.

Organic and paid search are the top traffic channels that convert the best, with paid search clicks from Google bringing in the most sales to your online store.

Numerous studies have proven this to be true, and it's because search results catch the user in the moment they're looking to buy.

Paid advertising has the advantage of being at the top of the search engines, where most searchers' eyes are drawn initially.

Paid results, also known as "pay per click" (PPC) advertising, can be customized to reach the specific people you want to convert.

Combining paid ads and SEO can also improve your online ranking.

Paid results can be almost indistinguishable from unpaid results, making users click without hesitation.

A well-structured Shopify site is key to a smooth user experience and better search engine rankings. Shopify site structure, by design, can come with two URLs leading to the same piece of content, but you can use canonical directives to recommend one URL to Google.

To avoid Google indexing content, use noindex directives within your theme file. This will help keep your site structure simple and SEO-friendly. You can also use tools like Octopus, FlowMap, draw.io, or Miro to graphically display the structure of your online store.

Shopify already comes with certain built-in speed optimizations, including Leverage Browser Caching and Utilize A CDN. However, you can further optimize your site's speed by using Google page speed insights to analyze your web page content and measure your site's full user experience. A simple speed check on a fresh Shopify site with a few hundred products shows amazing speed, much better than any WooCommerce site.

Google Analytics is a free platform for tracking and analyzing your website's traffic. It's a must-have tool for any online store, including yours.

To set up Google Analytics for your Shopify store, simply follow the instructions in the Shopify dashboard. Google Analytics is free, so there's no cost to you.

Having Google Analytics installed will provide you with valuable insights into your store's performance, including traffic, engagement, and conversion rates. This information will help you make data-driven decisions to improve your store's performance.

For example, you can use Google Analytics to track which pages on your site are most popular, and which products are selling the best. This information can help you optimize your product pages and improve your overall sales strategy.

Here are some key benefits of using Google Analytics:

By installing Google Analytics, you'll be able to make informed decisions about how to improve your store's performance and increase sales.

Having a well-structured site is crucial for both users and search engines. Shopify's limitations can be addressed by customizing your online store, allowing for a more hierarchical structure.

To create a logical menu, divide your content into clear categories that align with customer searches. This will make it easy for visitors to navigate your store and find what they're looking for. Consider using tools like Octopus, FlowMap, draw.io, or Miro to graphically display the structure of your online store.

Internal links are like votes in a page's favor, signaling to search engines which content is most relevant to users. A simple way to create links that accurately represent the hierarchy of your store's content is to develop a logical store navigation. This can be done by creating product pages or editing the titles of your existing products to match popular search terms.

Shopify's site structure can be improved by optimizing your product titles, creating collections, and adding new pages to your store's menu. This will help search engines index your pages individually and improve your site's visibility in search results.

Worth a look: Free Add Website to Search Engines

A well-structured site can also help with SEO. To avoid Google indexing content, use noindex directives within your theme file. This will ensure that both Google's crawler and users don't see certain pages, keeping your site structure simple and SEO-friendly.

Here's a summary of Shopify's site structure limitations and how to address them:

Shopify sites are known for their speed, often surpassing WooCommerce sites and even outperforming Magento. You can use Google page speed insights to analyze your Shopify web page content and measure your site's full user experience to improve your site performance.

Shopify stores come with built-in speed optimizations, including Leverage Browser Caching and Utilize A CDN. This means you don't have to worry about setting these features up yourself.

Optimizing your product images is crucial for site speed. Use image optimizer sites like tinypng.com to compress your images before uploading them to Shopify. Remember, a page with huge, un-optimized images can still bring your rankings down.

Shopify stores can benefit from using SEO apps and tools to improve their site, such as the Google search console to make it easier to index and browse.

You can also use Shopify apps to save time and effort while boosting your SEO, as they can automatically check and frequently update pages.

To troubleshoot and optimize your Shopify SEO, identify and target featured snippets, use alt tags for images, and keep your page speed fast.

Here are some key areas to focus on:

By addressing these key areas, you can improve your Shopify store's SEO and drive more traffic to your site.

To fix issues with your Shopify store, start by addressing the SEO shortcomings of the platform. You can find evidence of these shortcomings in the "Shopify SEO Problems That Are Killing 75% of Search Traffic" section.

One common issue is that Shopify stores often miss out on 3/4 of their search traffic. This is due to the platform's limitations in generating relevant search results.

To improve your store's visibility, use a variety of keywords in your content, including your target keyword in the title and meta description. This will help search engines understand your page's content and entice clicks from search engine results pages.

Shopify automatically fills the title and meta description fields with the product or collection name and description, but further customizing them will help you accurately represent your page.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when customizing your title and meta description:

Another issue to address is the need for secure websites. Search engines give secure websites (those that use HTTPS:// instead of HTTP://) preference in the search results.

To secure your site, you'll need a secure socket layer (SSL) certificate. Shopify includes an SSL certificate as part of your subscription, but you need to activate it. If you're building a new Shopify store on a new domain, activating takes just a few minutes.

However, if you're migrating from another platform to Shopify, you'll need to make sure that all the old HTTP:// links 301 redirect to the same page on the HTTPS:// site. Shopify's resources don't do a good job of indicating this, but their support team has confirmed that the platform will automatically create the 301 redirects.

Shopify's limited functionality can hinder your store's search visibility.

One major issue is the lack of support for nested collections or "Shopify sub collections." This means you can't easily create subcollections within your collections.

Product tags and filters can serve as a temporary solution, but they generate dynamic pages that aren't indexed by search engines.

Without a developer to customize the functionality, you won't be able to create the correct structure for your Shopify store.