Shopify SEO Tips | How To Improve SEO on Shopify [2023 Guide]

Welcome to our guide on improving Shopify SEO. Many businesses struggle with their online presence, especially when it comes to search engine optimisation. That’s why we’ve put together this 2023 Guide of the best Shopify SEO tips and tricks to help you optimise your site and achieve better results. Let’s get started and explore how you can improve your Shopify SEO!

What is Shopify SEO?

Shopify SEO is a set of search engine optimisation (SEO) adjustments tailored to the platform. It helps improve your store’s visibility in search engine results, allowing customers to find your products easier. Shopify SEO can help you drive more traffic and sales to your store from Google and other search engines.

Optimising your site structure, improving user experience, and using data-driven keyword research will ensure your store is visible to potential customers searching for what you offer. Creating a blog strategy with insightful posts can generate traffic and boost rankings. Working with an experienced Shopify SEO agency can provide even more benefits, such as customising strategies to fit your needs.

The Importance of SEO for Shopify Stores

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an essential tool for any business, but it is especially important for those that use the Shopify platform. E-commerce SEO helps improve the visibility of a store’s products and services in search engine results, leading to more customers and higher sales. With the right strategies, businesses using Shopify can maximise their search engine rankings and reach more potential customers.

This guide will look at some key strategies for improving your Shopify store’s SEO. We’ll cover topics like keyword research, optimising metadata, creating a site hierarchy, and more. By following these tips, you can ensure that your store is well-positioned to take advantage of the power of SEO.

E-commerce Platform Optimisation

Overview of the Basic Steps to Optimise your Shopify Store

Getting started with improving your Shopify store’s SEO can take time and effort. To make it easier, here is a brief overview of some of the basic steps to take:

• Conduct keyword research: Identifying the keywords related to your products and services can help you create optimised content for search engines.
• Optimise meta descriptions: Meta descriptions are short summaries of each website page shown in search engine results pages. These should be accurate, concise, and keyword-focused to help draw customers in.
• Create a site hierarchy: Make sure that all the pages on your site are easily accessible so that visitors don’t get lost while navigating around. A site hierarchy also helps search engine bots crawl your website quickly and efficiently.
• Focus on user experience: Ensuring your website is easy to use can go a long way towards improving organic rankings. Focus on optimising page speed, intuitive navigation, and creating a pleasant user experience.

We will cover all these steps in more detail throughout this guide.

Importance of Optimising your Shopify Store

Optimising your Shopify store is essential for improving the user experience and increasing sales. A slow-loading website can lead to customers leaving your site before they even have a chance to browse your products or services. By optimising your Shopify store, you can ensure that customers have a smooth and enjoyable shopping experience while improving e-commerce usability.

Speed is one of the most important factors when optimising your Shopify store. Customers expect websites to load quickly, so if yours takes too long, they may leave without completing their purchase. 

Another critical factor in optimising your Shopify store is ensuring all content is optimised for search engines. This includes creating meta descriptions for each page on your site and ensuring all images are correctly tagged with alt text. Additionally, you should ensure that all URLs are SEO-friendly and include relevant keywords.

It’s also beneficial to regularly monitor the performance of your Shopify store by checking analytics data such as page views and bounce rates. This will help you identify any areas where optimisation may be needed so that you can make changes accordingly.

On-page Optimisation for Shopify

Research the Right Target Keywords

When it comes to on-page optimisation, keyword research is essential. Knowing which keywords to target can help you create content that is more likely to be found by your target audience. It can also help you understand what kind of content your audience is looking for and how they search for it.

The first step in keyword research is to brainstorm ideas for seed keywords. This can be done by looking at search suggestions from Google, thinking of questions ideal customers might ask, or using keyword research tools such as Ahrefs or Moz. Once you have a list of potential keywords, you can use tools like SEMrush or MailChimp to analyse the competition and search volume associated with each one.

Once you have identified the best keywords to target, it’s time to start optimising your Shopify store pages for them. This includes ensuring that all relevant pages contain the targeted keywords in their titles, meta descriptions, headings and body copy. Additionally, make sure that any images used on the page include alt text with the targeted keyword so that search engines can better understand what the page is about.

By doing proper keyword research and optimising your Shopify store pages accordingly, you will be able to reach more of your target audience and increase conversions from organic traffic sources.

Optimise Product Pages

When optimising product pages for Shopify, there are a few key things to remember. First and foremost, you want to ensure that your product pages are easy to find in search engines. This means having descriptive titles with brand names and keywords and meta descriptions that accurately describe the products. Additionally, you should include professional photography and clear calls-to-action (CTAs) on each page.

Adding personal details to testimonials and making reviews easy to read is valuable. This will help build trust with potential customers and encourage them to purchase from your store. Finally, consider highlighting particular features or culturally relevant content on your product pages to boost engagement and conversions.

Incorporate Video and Engaging Media

While content is still king, videos and other visual elements can help grab customers’ attention and ensure your Shopify store stands out.

Video content should be keyword-rich and optimised with metadata such as titles, descriptions, meta tags, and even transcripts. Employing interactive media such as carousels or slideshows can add visual appeal to your website while helping drive engagement and conversion rates. With these tips, you can optimise your Shopify store for better ranking in SERPs and get more customers on your site!

Add Alt Text to Images

Adding alt text to images is integral to on-page optimisation for Shopify. Alt text, or alternative text, is a short description of an image that helps search engines understand what the image is about. Screen readers also use it to provide context to visually impaired users.

When adding alt text to images on Shopify, it’s essential to ensure that the text accurately describes the image and is relevant to the page content. The alt text should be concise and descriptive but not too long or overly detailed. Additionally, it should include keywords related to the page topic when possible.

It’s also essential to ensure all images have alt text, even if they are decorative or used for layout purposes only. For these types of images, you can use a blank alt tag (alt=” “) or a generic term such as “decorative image” or “layout graphic”. This will help ensure your site remains accessible and optimised for search engine crawlers.

Site Hierarchy Optimisation

Overview of Site Hierarchy

Having a well-structured website is essential for any business, especially when it comes to Shopify. A good site hierarchy can help improve your SEO rankings and make it easier for customers to find what they want.

When it comes to optimising your site structure, there are several key elements you should consider. First, use a standard URL structure that reflects your site’s hierarchy. This will make it easier for search engines to crawl and index your pages. Use categories to group related content and prioritise URLs in your navigation bar. This will help customers quickly find what they need and ensure that important pages are easy to access.

Another important factor is using HTML and CSS for navigation menus. This will ensure that all links are easily accessible from any page on the site. Use a heading hierarchy when creating content so that search engines can understand the importance of each page on the site. Finally, be sure to plan your website structure in advance so everything is organised logically and efficiently.

Importance of Site Hierarchy for SEO

When optimising your website for search engine rankings, site hierarchy is an important factor that should not be overlooked. Site hierarchy refers to how pages and content are organised within a website. It helps search engines understand the structure of a website and how its content is related. This makes it easier for them to crawl and index the pages, resulting in better visibility in search engine results.

For e-commerce websites, such as Shopify stores, having a well-structured site hierarchy can make a huge difference in SEO performance. A good site hierarchy will help ensure that all relevant pages are easily accessible by search engines, allowing them to index more of your content and improve your chances of ranking higher in SERPs. It can also help improve user experience by making it easier for visitors to find what they want on your website.

When creating a site hierarchy for an e-commerce store, there are several key factors to consider:

1. Ensure that all product categories and subcategories are clearly defined so visitors can easily navigate between them.
2. Try creating unique URLs for each page so search engines can index them separately.
3.  Use internal linking to connect related pages and ensure all critical pages have clear titles and meta descriptions, so they appear correctly in SERPs.

By creating a well-structured site hierarchy for your Shopify store, you can significantly improve its SEO performance and increase its visibility in search engine results.

Mobile Optimisation for Shopify

Overview of Mobile Optimisation

Mobile optimisation is an important factor when running an eCommerce business on Shopify. With more and more shoppers using their mobile devices to browse and purchase products, ensuring that your store is optimised for mobile users is essential. This means ensuring your website loads quickly, has a user-friendly navigation bar, and displays product images.

To get started with optimising your Shopify store for mobile, you should first make sure that the navigation bar is easily accessible. This will allow customers to quickly find what they want without scrolling through multiple pages. Moreover, you should adjust visuals, such as product images, to look great on smaller screens. Highlighting product images can help draw attention to them and encourage customers to purchase.

You should also try to minimise the text used on product pages, as this can be challenging to read on small screens. Instead, focus on providing concise descriptions highlighting each product’s key features. Finally, you can optimise loading times by using a fixed navigation bar and optimising your images with SEO Image Optimiser – a free Shopify app.

Tips for Mobile Optimisation on Shopify

Mobile optimisation is essential for any Shopify store. With the increasing number of shoppers using mobile devices to make purchases, it’s important to ensure your store is optimised for mobile users. Here are some tips on how to optimise your Shopify store for mobile:

1. Optimise Your Checkout Process – Make sure your checkout process is as simple and straightforward as possible. This will help reduce the time customers spend trying to complete their purchases and increase their chances of completing them successfully.
2. Simplify Navigation – Keep your navigation bar simple and easy to use so customers can quickly find what they’re looking for without getting lost or frustrated.
3. Consider How You Use Text – Make sure that text on product pages is kept to a minimum and easy to read on mobile devices.
4. Optimise Images and Videos – Ensure that images and videos are optimised for mobile devices to load quickly and look great on any device.
5. Thumb Zone Optimisation – Design your site with thumb zone optimisation in mind, ensuring buttons, links, and other interactive elements are easily accessible with a thumb when using a mobile device.

By following these tips, you can optimise your Shopify store for mobile users and maximise conversions from mobile shoppers.

Off-page Optimisation for Shopify

Importance of Off-Page Optimisation for SEO

Off-page optimisation helps increase a store’s visibility and authority in search engine rankings, leading to more organic traffic and higher sales. It involves activities such as link building, content marketing, social media engagement, and other strategies that help to increase the number of external links pointing to your store.

Link Building for Shopify

Link building is one of the most effective off-page optimisation techniques for Shopify stores. Creating high-quality backlinks from other websites can improve your store’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). This will help drive more organic traffic to your store and ultimately lead to more sales.

Content Marketing for Shopify

Content marketing is another great way to boost your off-page optimisation efforts. Creating relevant and engaging content can help attract new visitors and keep them coming back for more. Additionally, social media engagement can benefit off-page optimisation as it helps build relationships with potential customers and increases brand awareness.

High-quality Backlinks for Shopify

Backlinks are links from other websites that point to your own. They act as a vote of confidence in your website, helping to boost its authority and credibility. The more high-quality backlinks you have pointing to your Shopify store, the higher it will rank in SERPs.

There are many ways to build backlinks for your Shopify store. You can start by creating relevant and engaging content, such as blog posts or videos. You can also use social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram to promote your content and get more eyes on it. Moreover, you can reach out to influencers or other websites in your niche who may be willing to link back to your site.

Another way to build high-quality backlinks is through link audits. This involves reviewing all the links pointing to your Shopify store and ensuring they are from authoritative websites with good domain authority scores. If there are any broken links or low-quality sites linking to yours, you should remove them, as they could damage your SEO efforts.

Canonicalisation and Duplicate Content for Shopify

Overview of Canonicalisation

Canonicalisation is a process used to convert data with more than one possible representation into a standard approved format. This ensures that search engines do not index the same content multiple times, which can lead to duplicate content issues. The canonical tag (“rel canonical”) is an HTML element with the attribute of rel= “canonical” that tells search engines which URL should be considered the master copy of a page.

When a website has duplicate content, Google will choose the canonical URL as the authoritative version. This helps ensure that only a one-page version is indexed and prevents any confusion or penalties due to duplicate content. It also allows users to consolidate multiple URLs into one main URL, which can help improve SEO rankings and user experience.

For Shopify merchants, it’s important to understand how canonicalisation works to avoid potential penalties from Google due to duplicate content issues. Using the rel= “canonical” tag on pages with similar or identical content, you can tell search engines which version should be indexed as the master copy. This will help ensure that your website complies with Google’s guidelines and prevent potential penalties due to duplicate content issues.

How to Set Domain-Level Canonicalisation

Duplicate content is a common issue for e-commerce websites, and Shopify is no exception. Fortunately, there are several ways to deal with duplicate content issues on Shopify, one of which is setting domain-level canonicalisation.

Canonicalisation helps search engines identify the original source of a page’s content and consolidate all duplicates into one version. This ensures that all authority from the duplicate pages is passed onto the original page, helping to improve SEO rankings and avoid any penalties from search engines.

To set domain-level canonicalisation on Shopify, you need to add a canonical tag to your website’s head tag. This tells search engines which URL should be used as the main source of information when indexing your site. You can do this manually or use an app like SEO Manager or SEO Booster Pro to help automate the process.

Once you have added the canonical tag, it’s important to keep an eye on your website’s performance and ensure it works correctly. If you notice any issues with duplicate content or poor rankings, it may be worth revisiting your canonical tags and ensuring they are still pointing to the correct URLs.

How to Set Page-Level Canonicalisation

When setting up page-level canonicalisation on Shopify, there are two main methods: HTML and HTTP headers. The HTML method involves placing a canonical tag at the head level of your page’s HTML code. This tells search engines which version of the page should be indexed as the original. The HTTP header method involves sending an HTTP response header with a “Link” tag containing the URL of your page’s preferred version.

It’s important to note that both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. For example, using HTML tags may be easier to implement but more difficult to maintain if you have multiple versions of a single page. On the other hand, using HTTP headers can be more complex but is generally easier to maintain over time since it doesn’t require manual updates each time you make changes to your pages.

Regardless of which method you choose, it’s important to ensure that all versions of your pages point back to one original source to avoid duplicate content issues. This will help ensure that search engines can accurately identify and index your content so that users can find it more easily in search results.

Tips for Removing Duplicate Content from your Shopify Store

Another way to remove duplicate content from your Shopify store is by using 301 redirects. A 301 redirect tells search engines that a page has been permanently moved or deleted and directs them to the new location. This helps ensure that no duplicate content appears in search results and can also help improve your website’s overall ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).

You can also use robots.txt files to help reduce duplicate content on your Shopify store. Robots.txt files tell web crawlers which pages they should not crawl or index on your website. This helps reduce the amount of duplicate content that appears in search engine results pages (SERPs) and can also help improve your website’s overall ranking in SERPs as well

Technical SEO for Shopify

Overview of Technical SEO

Technical SEO is a crucial part of optimising a website for search engines. It involves ensuring that the website is configured correctly and all the necessary elements are in place to help search engine crawlers understand and index the content on the website. When it comes to Technical SEO for Shopify, several key elements need to be taken into consideration.

One of the most important aspects of Technical SEO for Shopify is ensuring the robots.txt file is set up correctly. This file tells search engine crawlers which pages they should and should not crawl, and it can also be used to specify certain directives, such as whether or not images should be indexed. Ensuring that any canonical tags are set up correctly is important, as this will help avoid duplicate content issues.

Another key element of Technical SEO for Shopify is image optimisation. Images can play an important role in helping a website rank higher in search engine results, so it’s important to ensure that all images are optimised properly with relevant alt text and titles. Additionally, it’s important to ensure that all images are compressed properly, so they don’t slow down page loading times.

Google Analytics for Shopify

One aspect of technical SEO that is especially important for Shopify stores is setting up Google Analytics. This lets you track key metrics such as website traffic, user behaviour, conversion rates, etc. With this data, you can make informed decisions about optimising your website for better SERP rankings.

Adding Your Sitemap.xml to Google Search Console

Adding your sitemap.xml to Google Search Console is vital in setting up Technical SEO for Shopify stores. Your sitemap.xml acts as a roadmap for search engine crawlers, guiding them through the different pages of your website so they can index it properly. This gives them access to more information about your website and helps ensure that your store shows up in SERPs when users search for keywords related to your business.

To add your sitemap.xml to Google Search Console, you first need to generate it from Shopify’s admin panel. You can do this by going to “Online Store > Navigation > Site Map” and ticking the box labelled “Generate Sitemap Automatically” and save the changes. Once you have generated the sitemap, log into Google Search Console and click “Sitemaps” in the left-hand side menu bar. On the next page, enter the sitemap URL (usually http://yourdomainname/sitemap index.xml) and click submit. Google should then begin crawling your store’s pages based on what’s listed in the sitemap, helping it appear higher in SERPs!

Shopify SEO Apps and Tools

Various apps and tools can help with Technical SEO tasks, such as generating site maps, measuring page speed, and finding broken links.

One popular app is the Yoast SEO app, which can help you optimise each page on your website by giving you hints on how to write effective titles and meta descriptions. It also provides detailed analytics so you can track your performance in SERPs. Many other tools provide keyword research capabilities and link-building suggestions.

It’s important to note that some of these apps and tools come with a cost—usually a monthly or yearly subscription fee. However, investing in these tools may be worth it if you want your Shopify store to stand out from its competitors in SERPs.

Final Thoughts

Optimising your Shopify store for better SERP rankings requires the right apps and tools and staying up-to-date with the latest SEO best practices. Investing in appropriate apps and tools can help you optimise each page on your store for relevancy and visibility. 

Making sure that titles and meta descriptions are optimised, and writing content that is interesting and informative to users are key takeaways and recommendations to bear in mind when optimising a Shopify store. Following these tips will maximise your SERP visibility and get more customers on your website!

If you found this guide useful, take a look at the entire range on the Digital Estate blog, where we have professional information on an array of digital marketing topics.