At this point, your online business has taken off. Maybe you’re making good progress, and your customers are increasingly interested in what you’re selling. But how’s your rank on major search engines such as Google and Bing in comparison to your competition?
If your business’ website isn’t popping up on the search engine results page (SERP), then you need some SEO tactics to improve your rank. Where do you start? You know that search engine optimization is a critical component of your company’s success, but why is it so important?
Let’s dive into what Shopify SEO is, why it’s so vital for your business and some of the best tips and tricks for growing your online store.
SEO and Its Importance
Search engine optimization is the process of directing the most people to your site by using a search engine such as Google’s algorithm to appear on its unpaid results page. Other names people refer to those results are organic, natural, or earned.
So, how does your Shopify site make it to the organic results page?
One of the search engine’s users is looking for a product or service that you offer. Of course, they turn to the search bar for answers and type in a keyword or question that relates to something you sell. This step is where you, as the owner of your business, come into play. Your website appears as the first result on the page.
Now, you may have heard a rumor that SEO is no longer a thing. Let’s clear the air on that topic. It isn’t away any time soon, nor will it in the future.
Just because social media, paid advertisements, and email marketing have spots on the stage doesn’t mean they kick SEO out of the play. There are too many mobile and in-app searches for that to happen, among other things.
Another thing SEO has going for it, that unlike paid advertisements, it’s free. Paying to post ads on your site to boost your traffic flow is useful, but your wallet can run out of Benjamins pretty quickly with that method. While SEO takes some time to accomplish any noticeable results, it’s worth it in the end. And it ensures that your content remains stellar instead of crowded with advertisements and annoying emails.
Next, we’re going to see how your optimization looks for your Shopify store and reveal some techniques to ensure that you squeeze out every drop of profit from your SEO efforts.
How To Use SEO With Shopify
You’ve done yourself a favor by having a Shopify account. They have some pretty helpful features to help you out with your SEO game. So, a portion of the work is complete for you. Some of Shopify’s exciting tools that help you with optimization include:
- Your page’s title tags and URLs are editable.
- You can customize your image alt tags and file names.
- Your canonical URL tags are automatically generated to prevent duplicate content from appearing on your site.
- Your sitemap.xml and robots.xlt files are both automatically generated.
Are you still confused about what all that means? Here are a few of those definitions to keep you in the loop.
- Title Tags: We use title tags on search engine result pages (SERPs) to give users an idea of what the page is about before they click on it. Something of interest might capture their attention and make them decide to click on your page over the competition. Your title tag should be as descriptive and precise as possible.
- File Names and Alt Tags: Your file name and alt tags describe images that you include on your site. By adding a description, you give your pictures a chance to appear when a user searches for a particular image. Additionally, adding alt tabs helps those with vision impairment that use assistive technologies to have web pages read to them.
- Sitemap.xml: This file contains all of your pages, products, blog posts, and collections.
- The robots exclusion protocol (REP): As mentioned above your robots.xlt is a text file that a webmaster creates. It tells a search engine robot to index individual pages throughout their website.
- Meta Description: This HTML attribute is used on search engine results pages (SERPs) to give a user a preview and description of what the page they’re about to click on contains.
So, how do you use these features? We were just getting to that.
Growing Your Shopify Store With SEO
Shopify covers the basics without any effort from you. However, there are some attributes that you can choose to use to your advantage.
Shopify SEO: Page Headers
Headers are a valuable catalyst in your SEO efforts. Including your keyword in your page’s header will help the search engine algorithm correctly index your content under the right subject. Having keywords in headings also helps facilitate how quickly it means when a user searches for that particular word or group of words.
Having page headers for all of your category pages will be beneficial as well.
For example: let’s say you have a bakery where customers can order online.
Breaking your desserts down into categories like brownies, cupcakes, and cakes will help the user experience by making your website organized. Having page headers on each of these pages with applicable keywords will also help to optimize your site.
SEO Content for Shopify
Try to write a few paragraphs in your collection text, blog post, or product descriptions that include some of your keywords.
Shopify Title Tags
You can choose and edit your title tags for your products, collections, and pages. You can adjust the search engines section in your Shopify account.
Shopify Apps for SEO
There are plenty of applications available that facilitate the tedious job of SEO. Look in the Shopify App Store to download apps that can assist you with search engine optimization.
Meta Descriptions
While Shopify automatically creates meta descriptions from the text on your page, it’s a good idea to customize the content to match your marketing goals. You can add and edit meta descriptions using the Shopify admin.
Let Romain Berg Take Care of Your Shopify SEO
Your Shopify is incredibly useful in the SEO world. Take some time to try out each one of these tips to see what works best for your online business and learn more about how SEO works and can assist you. Don’t be shy. If you need professional help with e-commerce SEO, content marketing, or more, give us a call here at Romain Berg, and our expert team will help you obtain the results you desire.
