Shopify SEO Guide to Boost the Sales of Online Stores
Shopify is one of the best eCommerce solutions available in the market today. Its rising popularity can be gauged from the fact that over 800,000 businesses used the plartform as of 2019 to host their online store. The Shopify-powered eCommerce ventures across the globe have gained 100 billion in sales as well.
The platform is packed with excellent features like attractive templates. With Shopify, users can sell goods, physically or digitally, online with ease. Developing an attractive and content-rich website using Shopify is fine, but that is not the end of the story. The next part is to get organic traffic from search engines for your Shopify-powered venture. This is easier said than done as adopting the right SEO techniques requires a lot of thinking and planning.
Why Do You Need SEO in eCommerce?
The SEO is something which we keep hearing every now and then. Everyone talks about SEO, but not many understand the concept in the truest sense. For the uninitiated, it is the process of optimizing your website to get natural or unpaid traffic through the search engine results page. The SEO is done with the sole purpose of displaying your website in the top five results on the search engine.
By now, it is pretty much evident that SEO is a critical component of your website in magnifying its visibility. Even in eCommerce ventures, be it based on WooCommerce or Shopify, SEO plays a significant part in driving traffic. By employing the right optimization tactics, the online stores powered by Shopify or any other platforms can easily reach out to their target audience. One such tactic happens to be website structure optimization, which helps you avoid duplicate content on your Shopify store. Check our some really good reasons to optimize the structure of your eCommerce website.
3 Reasons to Optimize Your Shopify Store for SEO
Many times, Shopify store owners find themselves in a quandary due to lack of traffic despite having a content-rich eCommerce platform. It must be noted that having a descriptive website is fine, but it solely does not guarantee organic traffic. The key is to improve your Search Engine Optimization(SEO) so that your online store becomes easily visible on search engines, the place crowded by those searching for anything. So, it is apparent that Shopify store owners must optimize their store for SEO.
#SEO is like an unpaid advertisement:
What people mostly do when they have to buy or purchase something. They go to Google or any other search engines to search the product. When they come across a search engine results page, they are bound to choose the topmost options. If your product does not feature in the top results then you will lose, irrespective of the quality and variety of services you offer. This is where SEO does the trick. By adopting relevant SEO practices, your Shopify-based site can easily break into the top of the results page. This explains why you need to optimize your Shopify store for SEO.
#Optimization establishes brand credibility:
Everyone looks for brand credibility. The same applies in your case as well because even you would not buy anything from an unknown entity. Now, the question is how to achieve the same for your Shopify online store. Even here also SEO comes to your rescue. By following correct SEO guidelines, your site will feature in the top results. When the audience sees your site on the top, they start believing in the brand value of yours. This prompts them to visit your site and make purchases.
#It boosts sales as well:
The SEO ensures increased traffic to your Shopify-powered website as a result of positive brand exposure. This leads to the multiplying of your customer base and, eventually, sales. The main objective of every eCommerce venture is to enhance the bottom line. It is common knowledge that your business cannot be profitable if sales are on the decline. So, optimizing your site goes a long way in taking your offerings to a wide audience and increasing the sales of your products online.
4 Ways to Improve the SEO of Your Shopify Store
Dissimilar to other sites, Shopify-powered stores have different kinds of SEO. Content marketing won’t be the sole priority as far as these sites are concerned. In fact, you would be splitting your bases between three types of optimization. There are technical aspects such as metadata, URL structure, etc. and you also have to factor in crucial on-page SEO aspects like content optimization. So, let’s explore these factors to identify steps to improve the SEO of Shopify stores.
#Use an SEO-optimized theme:
In order to have an effective Shopify-powered eCommerce store, choosing a SEO-friendly theme is essential. With an a SEO-optimized theme, your website will face no problem with regard to search engine optimization. When it comes to SEO-friendly themes, it is always advisable to opt for a custom Shopify theme as it will be specific to your SEO requirements. However, if you want to opt for pre-made theme, then there are some good options available for the same at Shopify store as well:
#Get your keywords right:
Over here, it might be a bit boring, but you have to go back to the traditional method of manual keyword research. Identify the kind of keywords people are using to find your products for the purpose of purchasing them. Look for keywords that stress on purchases. This might sound a bit old-fashioned but very effective way to optimize your Shopify store. There are some keyword search tools which can help you out in finding the right keyword:
#Building Quality back-links:
By building quality links for your Shopify store you can easily improve your search engine rankings. It’s happens to one of the productive ways to grow organic search traffic. However, you need to be cautious when it comes to building quality backlinks as links play a major part in how Google and other search engines determine trustworthiness a website is from the beginning. Here is how you can attract and build quality back-links for any eCommerce store.
#Be innovative while writing product pages:
An eCommerce site features mostly products. These pages need to be descriptive and interesting. A striking and poignant description of the product is mandatory to attract maximum eyeballs. This apart, mention technical aspects of the product such as size and dimensions. Also, think of a unique feature, which Google can utilize for organic ranking and influences users to take a decision.
Best Shopify SEO Apps to Drive Sales
It is true that the Shopify platform is adept at dealing with most of the technical problems pertaining to the SEO, however, it won’t be a bad idea to install an app with which you can directly influence your site. If you have the relevant app, then it can easily spot SEO errors and guide you on how to fix them. This is akin to automated SEO audit.
There are numerous Shopify SEO apps available to make your business profitable. These applications are very much adept at resolving any kind of issues pertaining to optimization. They are also capable of improving the rankings of your Shopify store on search engines. Considering the number of choices, it would be tough for you to zero in on one. Hence, to make your job easier, we have compiled a list of six best Shopify SEO apps.
Smart SEO:
This Shopify app makes your WordPress website very much accessible to Google and other search engines. Smart SEO also helps your website attract organic traffic. Over here, you don’t have to enter meta tags or alt tags manually for every product in your store. The Smart SEO app can generate the same for you.
SEO Ranger:
This is another Shopify app that will certainly boost SEO prospects of your online store. With just a single click, the SEO Ranger can scan your entire website. This can also find and fix optimization issues, plaguing your Shopify-powered eCommerce venture.
SEO Assistant by Buymaxx:
This is another valuable Shopify app which can boost the SEO potentials of your eStore. With flexible SEO settings for products and pages, the app can easily facilitate higher organic traffic and search engine rankings. Its Advanced SEO Automation saves your valuable time by automatically editing Meta tags and ALT tags in bulk.
SEO Manager:
With the SEO Manager, it would become easy and convenient to follow and execute SEO strategies to help your store get good rankings on search engines. This is very user-friendly and helps you in getting real-time feedback about the results of your site optimization efforts. Broken links can be detrimental to your SEO prospects as search engines perceive 404 error in a negative light. The SEO Manager keeps broken links issues under check by automatically fixing the same.
SEO- All in one & Auto SEO:
This application has perfect solutions for all the SEO needs of your Shopify store. It optimizes images with smart and flexible SEO friendly ALT tags to multiply traffic from image search engines. It can also fix issues pertaining to broken link as well. It is also capable of scanning your entire online Store for SEO-related issues.
SEO image Optimizer:
SEO Image Optimizer fits perfectly in your scheme of things if you want to provide Alt-text to images. This has to be one of the most trusted apps for SEO from the stable of Shopify store. This enhances user experience and betters your store ranking. This application is a must if you wish to harness your SEO potential.
Final Thoughts:
After going through the article it has emerged with clarity that SEO is a critical component for all websites which should not be ignored at all. The SEO is also very significant for Shopify-powered eCommerce sites as well to get higher ranking and drive organic traffic. This even leads to growth in sales as well. With right SEO guidelines, websites based on Shopify or any other platforms can flourish even in the cut-throat competitive world. In case, you are looking for a reliable partner to build an eCommerce site on Shopify platform, feel free to contact us.
