Tips to Do SEO for a Shopify Website

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1. Write Unique Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions

Each web page of your website should have a unique meta title and meta description for a search engine to know it and rank it.
It should follow the estimated character limit and should have the right keywords. Ensure your title falls under 60 characters while your meta description does not surpass the limit of 160 characters.
Each page of your website, beginning from About us to a specific blog post, should have this unique set of information for better clarity of the search engine, which will, in turn, provide better visibility to the user.
The process for sure requires effort as it needs to be done for each page, but it is worth spending time seeking results for your website.

2. Improve Searchability Through Images

To make the traffic stay on your website, you need to pull out some striking images that captivate the user's attention as visuals tend to stay longer in the memory.
Alt tags are a great way to make the search engine understand what the image is all about, and it will help when users are looking for products that your website has to offer.
Just make sure that the images have the right set of keywords to describe them. Optimize images present on the Shopify website to get better results.
Alt tags should be unique, to the point, and clear for better understanding such that there is no ambiguity.
These are ways by which users will move a step ahead in adding the item to their cart.

3. Generate Backlinks for Your Shopify Website

Your website can have the most creatively written captions and most beautifully captured images, but it will not result in the desired result. Why?
You missed out on an essential factor, backlinks. The links that point to your website as a source of credible information.
The best way to do it is through engaging blog posts. This includes writing quality content, using the right set of keywords with links that have detailed and genuine information. To increase the traffic, these links should redirect to your website.
Always remember that your content should add value to the users who are investing time on your website. It should either address their pain point or should educate them enough.

4. Optimize On-Page SEO for Your Website

If you are new to getting your Shopify website ranking, it is better to use long-tail keywords to avoid competing with better-ranking websites.
Ensure that the primary keyword appears within the first few words of the content on your website.
The headings on each web page should follow a consistent format. While on the same page, it can be in descending order depending on the sequence of importance.
Keeping a checklist handy for SEO will be of great help each time you update a web page or post something new.

5. Use Concise and Keyword-Rich URLs

The good thing about Shopify is that it uses comprehensible URLs. However, they need to be optimized further as per Shopify SEO.
Shopify adds product pages at the beginning of the URLs, while you can make the suffix clear and to the point.
It should have your primary keyword, which will help the search engine rank your web page, and the users would be able to understand better as they can break it down.
Further, Shopify gives you an option to modify the URL as per your requirement through the 'URL and handle' box.

6. Manage Your Headings in the Right Manner

Headings on your web page play an important role in segregating content for the search engine.
This helps it for content indexing. But the problem arises when we do not pay heed to it.
Instead of using proper headings such as H1, H2, H3, and so on, we simply use a different font or bold the heading to differentiate it from the body text.
Apart from content indexing, this disturbs the visual aesthetics of the website, and you tend to lose consistency for several web pages.
To do this, Shopify gives you an option to simply use H1 for the main heading and subsequently H2, H3 for subheadings to maintain the visual appeal.

7. Hand in Your XML Sitemap to Google

You need to share your Shopify store sitemap with search engines like Google. This helps it to index your site in no time.
With Shopify, the plus point is that it gives you a readymade option to generate one. You can do it by simply going to your site and clicking the sitemaps option through the dashboard.
You can consider a sitemap like a flowchart that helps Google comprehend which content is present and what path it can follow to reach there.
Therefore, all your web page URLs should be listed on it so that Google can reach each of the pages.

8. Get SSL Certification for Your Website

Your Shopify website should be secure for the users visiting it. If the website isn't safe, then your visitors may not convert into your users.
Securing your website will require an SSL certification. Shopify gives you an option to activate SSL certification for an existing domain, or if you have bought a new one, then it's an absolute cakewalk.
You can easily navigate to the domain section from the Shopify dashboard. However, keep the technicalities in mind when you take a step ahead towards the certification to ensure that ranking of the website on the search engine doesn't get affected.

9. Minimize the Load Speed

The loading speed of your page is an important factor to take into account when search engines rank your website. The faster the speed, the better.
The next question arises, how can you work on the load speed?
Several factors can help. For instance, even though your website is visual, don't keep extremely large-sized images, videos, and other multimedia files. You can use a compressed version.
You can even make use of AMP, which stands for 'Accelerated Mobile Pages.' It helps to load the pages faster on mobiles as most users browse through websites over mobiles.

10. Engage Visitors for a Longer Duration

When users visit your website, make sure they come across engaging content.
The content you produce should address the users' pain points and provide them a seamless experience while they navigate.
Ensure the imagery used is visually appealing and the written content gives some insights to the user. This helps in building credibility and trust, eventually transforming the visitor into a loyal user.
You can use strong multimedia files to communicate the message.
Another way is to use internal links in your posts, so the user traverses across various sections of the website to enrich his knowledge resulting in an increased session time.

Best Shopify SEO Tools/Apps

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1. Custom Your Web Page Details with SEO Manager

It is considered to be one of the best tools for Shopify SEO. The reason being, it has an exhaustive set of features for you to enable.
For instance, you can use personalized keywords, meta descriptions, and titles for each of your web pages.
Once you start using them, the tool will prompt feedback on which aspects are performing well with an international audience, and you can make the changes accordingly.
You can keep testing and previewing before you post something live.

2. Amplify Page Speed with AMP

Using Accelerated Mobile Pages is a great way to enhance page speed when the website is being browsed over mobile as most of the users do that.
On Shopify, you can easily convert the web pages to AMP. It not only makes the page look mobile-friendly but also loads quickly. This, in turn, can decrease the bounce rate exponentially.
You can use a free version to start with and eventually move to paid one for extensive features.

3. Give Context to Your Images with Alt Text

Alt-text is extremely important when it comes to the images on your Shopify store web page.
This gives you an option to set the alt text automatically without spending much time. It helps people to quickly navigate to the image they have been looking for using image search.
Further, it gives meaning to the images you have used on your website, making it easy for the search engine to comprehend.

4. Opt for Bulk Image Edit

Bulk Image Edit as the name suggests, allows you to optimize the images in huge chunks.
The tool is highly beneficial for traders or merchants dealing with many entities on their websites.
Bulk Image Edit is a multi-functional tool. It helps to edit many images at one go and compresses them to load them comparatively faster.
It sets the alt text and image name accordingly, thereby reducing the time taken to update.

5. Use JSON-LD for SEO for Extensive Features

What if you get to know that you can show more than keywords, descriptions, and titles to your user.
With the help of this app, your user can see other snippets as well, including the prices of your products. You can give your users more than what they usually get.
This app prepares the code for the snippet, so it keeps the snippet error-free. The app in itself an investment if you consider the benefits it brings with it.

6. Bring More on the Table with Schema plus for SEO

This app helps the search engine to crawl to your web -pages easily and index them at a faster pace than ever.
It helps bridge the gap between what the user is looking for and what your website presents in less time.
And it allows the user to see the reviews and ratings for your website, which specifically tells him whether it is worth being clicked or not.

7. Avail Benefits from SEO Images King

This application provides all kinds of packages as per your need. To name them: free trial, small shops to large shops package. You can use which suits your needs the best.
This allows you to work on alt text, meta titles, meta descriptions. The only thing is that each of these updates for products needs to be done one after the other.
Here, artificial intelligence plays an important role in improving the rank on the search engine with optimized usage of SEO parameters.

8. Move a Step Ahead with Smart SEO

If you have an extensive website on Shopify, it will require a huge effort to maintain the synergy. Optimizing certain things will be beneficial in that case.
Using this tool, you can stop worrying about meta descriptions. The tool will take care of it and that too in more than one language along with alt text for images.
The good news is that it takes care of broken links as well. This helps to reduce the time you would have otherwise invested in doing all of this manually.

9. Test Your Website with Plugin SEO

Using the best quality content with optimized SEO practices is not enough to make the most of your website. You will have to keep a keen check on it as well.
To make sure that there are no SEO fixes needed, Plugin SEO performs the tests needed. It keeps a check on the titles, keywords, descriptions, page speed that needs to be maintained.

Shopify SEO FAQs

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Q1. What Is the Best SEO App for Shopify?

Various applications are considered the best for SEO for a Shopify website. To name a few:

• Smart SEO,
• SEO Images King,
• SEO Booster,
• Plugin SEO,
• Bulk Image Edit, and more.

Q2. Is Shopify SEO Free?

Shopify SEO brings more to the table than you think. It takes care of descriptions, alt text and brings footfall to your website.
When it comes to the price, of course, the free version is available. Moreover, there are two other priced versions for extensive features.

Q3. How Can I Improve My Shopify SEO?

To improvise your Shopify SEO, there are several things that you can take care of.

• Get rid of redundant content from your Shopify website.
• Make sure your website has unique and keyword-rich meta descriptions.
• Use alt text for your images to make it easier for Google to understand the image reference.
• Use a secure website to uplift your user's trust.

Q4. Is Shopify SEO Any Different from Normal Ecommerce SEO?

Shopify itself falls under the e-commerce bracket. However, using Shopify SEO is much better as it gives you an edge with many plugins.
It not only saves your time that you would have otherwise spent filling in the details manually. But, it is an investment tool with the features it brings.