Do you run a shop on Shopify? This fairly easy to use and extensive platform is becoming more and more popular also among e-commerce companies. However, it should be remembered that opening an e-shop does not mean that your offer will be visible to buyers. They still have to get to her. What do I need for them to find your store on Shopify?
Shopify store SEO – what does it do?
Shopify is a Canadian e-commerce platform that allows you to quickly create an online store, adapt it to your needs and start selling. This system gives you access to many plugins and extensions that allow, among others, integrate the website with the Amazon platform or selected payment systems. A well-configured store is user-friendly, and the sellers allow for efficient execution of orders. However, in order for customers to show up, you need to position your Shopify store.
What exactly is Shopify store positioning? This is the process by which your website is visible to Google. As a result, when the customer enters phrases related to your offer in the search engine, he will see a link to the store high on the list of search results. How high your website will appear depends on how valuable your website is. Therefore, the e-shop must be adapted to the requirements of the search engine and “prove” that the information it contains is valuable for potential customers.
How well your Shopify e-store positions itself on Google is influenced by many factors, which we’ll cover a bit later. However, it is worth knowing that thoughtful SEO activities can significantly increase its sales potential and make acquiring one customer much cheaper. Positioning will make:
– you will hit high places on the list of search results for phrases related to your business,
– you will increase traffic on your store’s website, which will give you a better chance of convincing the customer to your offer,
– you will strengthen your brand on the web, which will allow you to compete better with other e-stores offering similar products,
– you will get long-term results – you will stay in high positions in SERPs for a long time, and the cost of acquiring a client will regularly decrease.
That is why positioning your store on Shopify is a basic SEO strategy worth investing in.
Is it worth SEO a shop on Shopify yourself?
The Shopify platform itself offers a wide range of possibilities when it comes to planning SEO activities. The website provides, among others possibility:
– automatic generation of links with SEO-friendly addresses,
– generating a sitemap and a robots.txt file, which are important from the point of view of indexing the page on Google,
– editing meta tags and their automatic creation,
– optimizing ALT attributes when uploading photos to product pages.
These functionalities can be additionally extended by using appropriate extensions and additions – such as, for example, All In One SEO and similar. It must be admitted that all these tools can make your positioning work much easier. However, the question is whether they will be enough for the results of all the activities carried out to bring measurable effects.
Keep in mind that the tools that increase the functionality of Shopify alone are not enough to effectively position your store. You still need to know how to use them. Effective SEO activities consist of many elements that must be coherently combined within one strategy – this is the only way you have a chance to achieve the expected success.
That is why, especially if you have no experience in positioning Shopify stores or any other website, it is better to entrust this task to specialists. Although service by a digital agency is associated with costs, in fact … it can bring you huge savings. The reason is simple: the budget you have for positioning your store on Shopify will be used wisely, and experts will skillfully refine the strategy to translate into more effective customer acquisition.
How to SEO your shop on Shopify?
First things first: positioning your Shopify stores is a multi-step process that takes a lot of time. Don’t expect the results to come a week or two after placing the order for SEO activities. What it comes from? Positioning requires, first of all, refining the website of your store – both on the technical and content level. In addition, it begins with an in-depth audit, which is the foundation of the work carried out.
It is during the audit that specialists define:
– what the current state of your store looks like and what needs to be changed in order to match SEO requirements,
– how your direct competitors are positioning and where there is a potential to overtake them,
– what keywords can be well positioned – it is worth remembering that those promoted by many stores in the industry at the same time will be more difficult. This means that entering the TOP 10 or a higher position in the ranking will take longer and will be associated with a higher financial investment. To reduce the level of these expenses, you can choose slightly less popular phrases at the beginning, and broaden their scope, by selecting Shopify store positioning in the long-tail model,
– how to modify and expand the content in the store so that it allows for better positioning results.
The more precisely such an analysis is carried out and the better the experts understand the sales process and the specifics of the industry, the better the subsequent SEO activities will be “set”.
What about after the audit? See what exactly you need to take care of in order to successfully position your shop on Shopify.
Fast loading of the store and its flawless operation
What do you do when you want to visit a website, but the website, instead of loading in the blink of an eye, opens endlessly? Nobody likes to wait these days. That’s why most people just close that page and move on to the next one. Your clients would do likewise. Google algorithms, which determine the position of individual pages in SERPs, are designed to present the user with the most precisely matched and most accessible results. Therefore, if your e-shop on Shopify is loading slowly, do not count on good positioning results. Google will lower your ranking.
What can make your Shopify store run slow? Shopify is a SaaS platform, which means that you are not responsible for hosting the servers – although the service itself ensures their high performance and reliable operation. But not only they translate into the loading efficiency of the website. Equally important are issues such as:
– the number of installed plug-ins and add-ons – if there are really many of them, it may turn out that some will “clash” with each other, delaying the opening of the website,
– image file sizes that have been posted on product pages – if they are “heavy” and there are a lot of them, they will download slower.
Various types of errors can be an equally big problem – for example, looping redirects between tabs or many subpages with the error code 404. These elements cause discomfort to the user, and thus, they look bad in the eyes of Google.
That is why the first stage of preparing a website for positioning is to look at all the technical aspects of its operation. It also includes security issues – it is important that the website uses an appropriate SSL certificate, which eliminates the risk of data leakage. You should also update the software and other elements that are responsible for the operation of the e-store on the web.
Correct site map
How are the products in your Shopify store organized? Positioning requires a very clear division into individual categories and subcategories. If all goods are simply thrown into the store “just like that” and only the general catalog on the home page leads to them – there is no question of the effectiveness of SEO activities.
All goods should be divided into categories and subcategories – so that their structure is as ordered as possible. This is important both for the positioning of the Shopify store and for the convenience of the user himself. A well-designed sitemap will make it easier for him to find interesting products, which will increase the chance of a purchase.
Improving the site map and organizing information and product pages in general is also one of the first steps to take when positioning your store on Shopify.
Content tailored for SEO
It is in the texts on the store’s website that you can include important key phrases, which will translate into a better position in the ranking. But be careful! Good content for store pages on Shopify is not one that is filled to the brim with keywords. Yes, they should be included in the texts, but in reasonable saturation, so that the texts are natural. In addition, SEO-specific content is the one that:
– have the optimal length – currently Google prefers longer texts, provided that they have actual substantive value and meet the requirements of positioning the store on Shopify,
– contain precisely selected key phrases – should be selected through SEO analysis using advanced tools, not “by eye”,
– are clear and easy to read, and therefore contain, inter alia, H2, H3, and sometimes even deeper headings, and use content highlights,
– they are unique – you absolutely cannot afford to copy them from other websites, even if you have the right to do so. Why? Because Google considers such copies of the content to be of little value, which will translate into a decrease in your position in the SERPs.
And what are the types of texts that are expected to appear with Shopify SEO in mind? He mainly judged:
– descriptions of categories and sub-categories of products, containing keywords that are related to them thematically – if you provide accesses with budget or news, and then introduce the main ones, then add more,
– product descriptions – one will also be an addition and expanded. In the store you want them to run, or even how you want them to continue,
– content on the main page – it is worth inserting a fragment that will also present the text of the store and will be the next page that will be the sale from the service point of the website.
In the longer term, it is also worth considering a company blog that allows you to combine SEO activities with typical content marketing. By choosing the right topics of the content and taking care of regularly publishing new ones, you can significantly increase and expand the SEO potential and maintain the results achieved at the beginning.
Linking matters
The content – both in the store itself and on external portals – should contain properly created links referring to individual sub-tabs of the website. Why is it so important? Because such links also affect the efficiency of positioning your store on Shopify. The more of them, the more valuable your e-shop is in a given context by Google. So let’s fight for it.
Links can be added both in the content of individual tabs with categories and subcategories, as well as in blog articles and in texts prepared for external websites – e.g. in sponsored articles.
Don’t forget about the metadata
The metadata is primarily the title and description parameters. What are they for? In a nutshell, they are displayed in Google search results. Therefore, they fulfill marketing roles, but most of all SEO. Therefore, these metadata should:
– have the appropriate length so that they are displayed well – in the case of title it is about 60 characters, and in the case of description – about 160. It is worth sticking to these values,
– be unique – they cannot be the same for individual subpages, because it will be problematic for Google, and thus unfavorable for the positioning of the Shopify store,
– contain appropriate keywords, preferably similar to those used in H1 headers on the subpage they refer to.
While Shopify allows you to automatically create your metadata, it’s a good idea to edit it for each tab and make sure it’s unique. This will bring many benefits when it comes to website positioning.
Also, be sure to add ALT attributes to your photos – especially those posted on your product pages. These parameters are also important for SEO, and in addition, they are important from the point of view of better accessibility to published content for people with disabilities.
How long does it take to position Shopify stores?
Wondering how long will you wait for your Shopify store SEO results? Be patient as this process can take up to 6 months. However, it is worth waiting calmly – the effects of good SEO activities will last for a long time.
But be careful! A one-time “setup” of positioning is not enough. At later stages, it is worth adding new content to the e-store and updating current texts with a focus on positioning for specific phrases. All these tasks, along with monitoring the effectiveness of positioning, will be performed by a good digital agency – so that you can be sure of visible results. What if you need your store’s advertising effects on Shopify faster? Then you can invest in solutions such as Google Ads or Facebook Ads. Paid campaigns, especially those using remarketing elements, will allow you to quickly attract the attention of buyers. However, they are relatively expensive, and their effects, although immediate, are short-lived. Therefore, it is best to combine SEO and paid advertising activities into one, well-thought-out and coherent strategy. Thus, problems can be avoided and a synergy effect can be achieved.
