How To Improve SEO On Shopify: The Essential Guide

The leading concern for businesses operating on the Shopify e-commerce platform revolves around attracting more customers and enticing them to purchase. With over 2.6 million businesses using Shopify in the US alone, competition is fierce. Standing out among this vast sea of offerings and getting potential buyers to notice is no small feat. This challenge is incredibly daunting for entrepreneurs who do not have a comprehensive understanding of search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. Without a solid grasp of SEO, it’s like navigating a labyrinth blindfolded, leaving businesses struggling to find their way to greater visibility and increased sales.

Optimizing your SEO on the Shopify platform is vital, an essential step for any e-commerce venture. While this can be daunting, especially for those not well-versed in SEO practices, Shopify has specific strategies and features to overcome this challenge. This article will provide three efficient tactics designed to improve Shopify’s SEO. We’ll guide you to implement these tactics effectively, ultimately empowering your business to rise above the competition and capture the attention of your target audience. With a refined SEO strategy, your Shopify storefront can become a powerful magnet for potential customers, drive conversions, and take your business to new heights.

Is Shopify Good for SEO?

Before we dive into the tactics, let’s answer a common question: Is Shopify good for SEO? The short answer is yes. Shopify offers many helpful features for SEO, such as mobile-friendly design, customizable metadata, headings, product details, product collections, the ability to add pages and blog posts, and more. As digital marketing consultant Nate Shivar explains, “Shopify is very SEO friendly out of the box.”

Shopify SEO Tips: 3 Tactics to Use on Your Shopify Site

Now, let’s get to the tactics. It’s important to remember that Shopify’s SEO is still SEO, so the first step is to understand impactful SEO strategies regardless of your CMS. However, a few specific Shopify features can make optimization easier. Here are three tactics to improve SEO on Shopify: 

Use Shopify Collections

Creating collections for product categories is essential for ecommerce businesses. Customers are likely searching for products with specific modifiers like color, price, material, and attributes. Shopify’s collections make it easy to create categories to group your products in ways that reflect what people search for on Google. SEO expert Aja Frost states, “Collections are essential for building a logical hierarchy and making it clear to shoppers and search engines how your products relate to each other.”

How to Optimize for SEO on Shopify Collections

When creating each collection, be sure to include the category keyword in each of the following areas:

  • Title
  • Description (use the keyword multiple times)
  • Image ALT text
  • Search engine listing
  • Page title
  • Meta description
  • URL handle.

Shopify SEO expert Cassandra Campbell says, “It’s important to ensure your collections have descriptive titles and are optimized for search engine ranking.”

Use Shopify Pages for Easy Internal Links

Internal links help search engines find your content and can provide small ranking boosts for keywords you’ve optimized for. Shopify’s page feature allows you to create easy internal links to collections and blog posts without cluttering your design or navigation. Nate Shivar says, “You can use pages to build custom collections or curate content…and then link to the collections or individual products.”

How to Use Shopify Pages to Build Internal Links

Create a list of all the collections you want to link to, including any blog posts addressing top questions. Organize the list of links into categories, such as “Shop by color,” “Shop by material,” “Shop by feature,” and “Frequently Asked Questions.” Update your list of links so that the link text is the product category/keyword. Create a new page in Shopify and name it “Shop by category.” Paste your organized list of links onto this page and publish. Add a text link to your “Shop by category” page in your site’s footer or the main navigation.

Take Advantage of the Blog Functionality

A blog can help you rank on Google for questions your customers are asking, and it can also build internal links that benefit the other pages you want to rank. Customers are likely searching for specific products and also Googling questions they have while shopping. Content marketing expert Ann Handley states, “A blog helps establish a relationship with a potential customer by answering questions and building trust.” 

How to Use a Shopify Blog to Improve

Let’s dive deeper into these tactics and see how you can implement them on your Shopify site to improve your SEO. This is also where a virtual assistant can come in to assist. 

Shopify SEO Strategy 1

Use collections. As mentioned earlier, collections are a great way to organize your products into specific categories that customers search for on Google. Creating collections that reflect your customers’ keywords increases the chances of your products appearing in relevant search results.

To optimize your collections for SEO, include the category keyword in the title, description, image alt text, search engine listing, page title, Meta description, and URL handle. This will help search engines understand what your collections are about, ranking them accordingly.

For example, if you sell running shoes, you might create collections for “trail running shoes,” “road running shoes,” and “athletics shoes.” Including relevant keywords in your collection titles and descriptions can help customers find exactly what they’re looking for, improving your chances of ranking for those keywords.

Shopify SEO Strategy 2

Use Shopify pages for easy internal links. Internal linking is an essential part of SEO, as it helps search engines understand the structure of your site and how pages are related to one another. Creating a page that links to your product collections and blog posts makes it easier for search engines to find and index those pages.

To create an internal linking page on Shopify, create a new page under the “Online Store” section of the backend. Name the page like “Shop by Category” and include links to your product collections and relevant blog posts. Make sure to use descriptive anchor text that includes relevant keywords.

Once you’ve created your internal linking page, add a text link to your site’s footer or the main navigation. This will help customers find your collections and blog posts more efficiently and help search engines understand the structure of your site.

Shopify SEO Strategy 3

Take advantage of the blog functionality. Blogging is an excellent way of providing valuable content to your customers and improving your SEO. Creating blog posts that answer common questions and provide helpful information can attract more traffic to your site and improve your chances of ranking for relevant keywords. 

To start blogging on Shopify, create a new blog under the “Online Store” section of the backend. Choose a name for your blog that reflects the topics you’ll cover, and start creating posts that provide value to your customers.

Include relevant keywords in your blog post titles and throughout the content. You can also link to relevant product collections and other blog posts to provide additional context and improve your internal linking strategy.

Conclusion on How to Improve SEO on Shopify

 Using these three tactics, you can improve your SEO on Shopify and increase your chances of ranking for relevant keywords. Remember to create collections that reflect what your customers are searching for; use Shopify pages to build easy internal links, and take advantage of the blog functionality to provide valuable content to your customers. With these strategies in place, you’ll be well on improving your Shopify SEO and driving more traffic to your site.

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