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How to use Shopify SEO Best Practices to Drive Traffic to Your Store

  • 5 minutes

Shopify SEO best practices: Building a great Shopify store doesn’t happen overnight. You plan to make your store the best it can be by developing attractive visuals, including great products, and delivering a great customer experience. But no matter how good your store is, it won’t grow unless it gets traffic.

That’s where search engine optimization, or SEO, comes into play. Without using SEO best practices, your amazing store may go unnoticed. As a result, your products won’t sell, and your brand will lose visibility. 

In this article, we will discuss how you can use SEO to drive traffic to your Shopify store. By the end, you will have a great understanding of how you can use SEO to boost traffic and improve your store’s overall performance.

What is Shopify SEO?

Shopify Search engine optimization (SEO) is a practice that allows your site to become visible to search engines such as Google. When users look something up on a search engine, they use specific words to find a specific item. We can refer to these words as “keywords,” “search terms,” or “queries.” Each query has specific keywords that search engine algorithms use to find specific content.

For instance, if a customer is looking for a great shoe store in their city, they may type in “the best shoe store in Manhattan” or “best shoe store Manhattan.” In this example, the search engine sifts through millions of websites, looking for words that match the search terms. The search engine then displays the most relevant results. 

Now, here’s something to consider:

The top search results may not actually be the best shoe store in Manhattan. However, the use of SEO strategies helps that website position itself atop search rankings. In the meantime, the best shoe store in Manhattan is somewhere near the bottom because its site doesn’t have the right Shopify SEO tactics.

Do you see where we’re going with this?

It’s pivotal to ensure your Shopify store appears on the first page of search results. 

Why?

According to estimates, roughly 75% of people never go past the first page of Google search results. 

Think about that for a minute. 

It can greatly improve your chances of success on Shopify if your Shopify store is on the first page. You can achieve this outcome by using Shopify SEO best practices.

Why are Shopify SEO best practices important?

Using SEO for your Shopify store offers the following advantages:

#1 Improves traffic

Improved traffic is the main advantage your Shopify store can derive from using Shopify SEO best practices. When your site is more visible to search engine algorithms, it’s much easier for potential customers to find your Shopify store. Consequently, more visitors find your site, thus improving the number of potential customers and sales.

#2 Optimizes user experience

You already have a great brand and products. So, the next step is to bridge the gap between you and your customers. You can reduce this gap by using Shopify SEO best practices. When you make it simpler for your customers to find you, they save time. As a result, customers have a better overall experience because it’s easy for them to find your Shopify store.

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#3 Boosts trust and credibility

On the whole, appearing atop search rankings boost your brand’s credibility and trust. After all, the vast majority of users never make it past the first page. This reason explains why the top results get the most attention. When your Shopify store appears on the first page, your brand automatically earns trust and recognition.

#4 Increase reach

There’s a limit to what marketing and advertising can do. For instance, your social media posts reach people connected or related to your shop’s profile. When you use Shopify SEO best practices, virtually anyone in the world will find your site. Consequently, your store’s reach increases dramatically. Improved reach will ultimately impact your Shopify store’s bottom line.

As you can see, there is no reason why you shouldn’t use Shopify SEO best practices. In doing so, you’ll be able to improve your Shopify store’s visibility and presence, reaching an entirely new group of potential customers.

9 Shopify SEO Best Practices

Let’s now take a look at nine Shopify SEO best practices that will surely help you boost your Shopify store’s visibility while generating increased traffic. 

#1 Custom domain name

Let’s lead off with the easiest way to help boost your Shopify SEO. A custom domain name is, by far, the most effective way you can help put your store on the search engine map. Your Shopify store’s domain name should reflect your products or your brand. In doing so, customers can quickly spot you. But there’s something else to a custom domain name. 

You see, when domain names are essentially generic, they get muddled with other similar domains. Thus, search engines have a harder time differentiating your domain from others.

Consider this example:

You have a Shopify shoe store. Your store’s name is “Discount Shoes.” Using discountshoes.com as your domain name actually hurts your Shopify SEO because “discount” and “shoes” are relatively generic domain names. Instead, something like thebestshoesinmanhattan.com includes keywords that customers would use when searching for “the best shoes in Manhattan.”

Please note you can purchase a domain name through Shopify. However, if you’ve got another domain name provider like GoDaddy or Wix, you can integrate that into your Shopify store. Highly customized or unusual domain names are often cheaper (sometimes as low as 99 cents) compared to more traditional .com domain names.

#2 Using SEO tools

All great Shopify SEO strategies use appropriate tools.

So, what are SEO tools?

SEO tools help you optimize your content to boost your SEO strategy. For instance, you can use a keyword research tool to help you find the most common keywords users utilize to find specific content.

Here are four very useful SEO tools you can use to boost your site:

Google Analytics is one of the essentials in building a successful SEO strategy. The free Google Analytics account tracks your transaction and revenue data. Advanced versions track your Shopify website traffic visitors and unique hits. 

Google Console. Your Shopify store automatically creates a sitemap. This sitemap is a list of the individual pages on your site. As such, the sitemap gives you a chance to optimize content, so individual pages appear in search results.

Keyword research tools. Paid keyword tools such as SEMRush provide you with analytics on a host of keywords. However, free tools such as keyword.io can provide you with basic but highly useful analytics that will enable you to optimize your site content.

Apps. Shopify has numerous apps for SEO that can help to boost your site’s rankings without too much effort from your part. 

Source: shutterstock.com/image-vector/man-woman-change-seo-ranking-position-1546927691

#3 Focus on keyword research

Using keywords makes a huge difference between obscurity and visibility. Since keywords represent the specific search terms in queries, you must ensure your Shopify store contains the right ones. Keywords should be relevant to your store, target customers, and products. For instance, if your store sells jeans, your keywords should revolve around “jeans” and everything your customers want to know about jeans.

While keyword research is important, please avoid keyword stuffing. Pumping content full of nonsensical keyword combinations will trigger search engine algorithms and may result in a penalty to your site, which can push your store further down the list of search results.

#4 Optimize Shopify store content

The opposite of keyword stuffing is finding useful content that exploits relevant keywords. For instance, product pages and blogs help boost Shopify SEO. Please remember that search engines algorithms read through millions of pages to find relevant results. 

However, algorithms don’t read every word. They only sift through the relevant keywords. Therefore, your content must reflect these keywords within a coherent, human-readable format as often as possible. Otherwise, your content may get flagged for keyword stuffing. While this practice isn’t illegal, it’s unfair, and search engine algorithms punish sites for it.

#5 Don’t forget your image alt text

Images contain “alt text” to describe what they are. This function serves to detail what the image is when it doesn’t load or enable on-screen reading tools to “read” the image. As such, the alt text should incorporate relevant keywords as much as possible. 

What’s the purpose of alt text in Shopify SEO best practices?

In particular, this Shopify SEO tip helps search engines find more content they can use to rank your site. Consequently, the better your page will rank the most relevant keywords in the alt text. For instance, a product page may use alt text such as “beautiful red discount shoes in Manhattan” to describe the product and incorporate relevant keywords.

#6 Aim for great responsiveness

A responsive page may not jump at you as a Shopify SEO best practice. Nevertheless, this Shopify SEO tip greatly enhances your Shopify store’s visibility. Particularly, responsiveness means that your site works well on mobile devices. 

Search engine algorithms consider this since it’s part of UX (user experience). When Shopify stores have low UX ratings, they rank lower than other sites even when their keywords, meta descriptions, alt text are top-notch.

Source: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-using-smartphones-searching-browsing-internet-1684207600

#7 Fast loading times win points

A critical component of solid UX is loading times. In short, the faster your site loads, the better it will rank. Search engine algorithms prefer lighter, faster-loading sites than slower ones. 

How can you improve loading times?

The easiest way to improve loading times is to use “light” images. In other words, using high-quality images with optimized sizes that don’t consume a lot of memory helps boost loading times. Also, avoid using heavy video introductions on your homepage. Video presentations affect your Shopify store’s loading times. A great Shopify SEO tip is to keep your home page simple and uncluttered. This approach helps boost overall loading times.

#8 Use internal links

Internal links refer to connections your site uses within itself to direct users to other site parts. When your site links pages within itself, it helps boost SEO by allowing algorithms to categorize content and rank it accordingly.

Here are three great ways of creating internal links:

Related items. When customers visit a product page, related items appear on the screen. These two pages are “connected” to one another, thereby giving search engines the understanding that they are related. Algorithms categorize them together, boosting their ranking instead of categorizing them individually.

Featured items. Like related items, featured items create internal links on your homepage. Consequently, these internal links help boost Shopify SEO.

Blogging. Blogs are a great way to load up on keywords and also market your e-commerce store. Moreover, they help create internal links. You can link blog articles to one another while also linking to product pages within blog posts.

#9 Avoid duplicate content

If there’s one thing that search engines algorithms hate, it’s duplicate content (DC). Since duplicate content could be an indication of plagiarism, search engine algorithms penalize it. Even if your content is original, it’s a good idea to double-check that you aren’t inadvertently using content that’s already been published online.

You can use plagiarism scanning tools such as Grammarly to check for DC. If your site has any DC, you should fix it immediately as it’s only a matter of time before algorithms bump your site down in the rankings.

How can PickyStory complement your Shopify SEO best practices?

It’s important to consider SEO when creating your PickyStory deals, as well. If you are offering bundles or deals on your product pages (or elsewhere in your store), you can ensure that the titles of these deals are relevant to your products and have a positive impact on your SEO. 

Additionally, PickyStory’s Combo Products act as regular products in your Shopify catalog, which means you can add descriptions and alter product names, just as you would for regular products. This gives you the ability to carefully consider names and titles that can offer an SEO bump and help your pages rank well in search results. 

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Learning Shopify SEO best practices will help your pages shine

Boosting your store’s online presence boils down to using the best SEO tips for Shopify. We have shown you how you can use Shopify SEO best practices to ensure your store is atop search results throughout this article. In doing so, you’ll boost traffic, grow your brand, and ultimately reap the rewards. 

If you’re looking for more Shopify tips and recommendations, check out the PickyStory blog.

Good Luck!

Read more: Upsell On Shopify: How To Upsell, Best Practices, Examples (+Pro Tips)

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