How to index pages and improve web positioning in Shopify?

We give you the SEO keys so that you yourself can index and position your Shopify virtual online store in Google and other web search engines.

As the eCommerce industry grows, the competition becomes more difficult. If you want your Shopify store to reach your audience, you need to optimize its SEO.

The SEO of a Shopify store can be optimized like that of any web page, but there are some peculiarities that you must know to work on this platform, just as it happens when we talk about SEO in Magento, Shopify's main competitor.

In this article I explain my experience as seo consultant on how to improve SEO on Shopify.

What is SEO web positioning in Shopify?

The most common way to implement an SEO strategy in online stores is through a SEO optimized blog and well worked. But the truth is You can implement SEO even if your store doesn't have a blog , and Shopify is a great place to do it. And if you already have a blog, there are plenty of reasons to improve your Shopify SEO and include it in your strategy.

To determine which web pages appear on the results page, Google selects the most relevant to the user's search terms. Optimizing a web page for SEO helps Google give it a good position in the ranking.

The efforts of SEO Marketing They go beyond articles. For example, a powerful way to apply Shopify SEO is in descriptions.

But there are other ways to improve SEO in Shopify quickly and that is by improving the performance of your website and configuring the structure of your store optimally for SEO, for example.

Why improve the SEO of your store in Shopify?

Like any web page, your Shopify store should be optimized for SEO. Making a page that works is not enough if you want to appear on the Google results page.

For your work to bear fruit, it is necessary to make your page more relevant to search algorithms and to your audience.

Here are some of the benefits you'll get from improving the SEO of your Shopify store:

• Increase organic traffic . Search engines are the best place to get traffic, and after you do a good job of SEO, organic traffic won't stop coming. The key is to use SEO to attract the target audience of your SEO for your store among the millions of people who use Google.
• Create an image of expertise . Users will feel the difference that an expertly made web page makes as a SEO company. Also, a properly SEO optimized website will be more authoritative in the eyes of Google. This is one of the factors that determines the type of changes that Google makes to its algorithms.
• Long-term results . The benefits of SEO last over time. You will have to make an initial investment, but the results you get will continue to give you organic traffic for a long time without the need for extra advertising expenses.
• Improve the user experience . Optimizing SEO in Shopify also means attending to various details that improve the experience of your users. Loading speed, good descriptions, correct labels, attractive images, security… All these things help users feel more comfortable on your website.

How to do SEO in a Shopify online store?

Understand what is SEO in Shopify

SEO on Shopify follows the same general lines as regular SEO. We can divide it into three parts:

• Technical SEO : These are the technical factors that help your Shopify website get indexed by search engines. It includes improving loading times and the structure of web data.
• On-page SEO : Covers all the optimizations you do to your content to make it more relevant to your audience and to search algorithms, which is known as SEO Copywriting. This includes creating content with your target audience in mind and optimizing your tags, headings, and links.
• SEO Off-page : Here are all the SEO activities that are done outside of the web page, such as link building, social networks and reviews.

Set up your store in Google Search Console

This procedure will help your web page to be indexed by search engines.

To add your Shopify store to Google Search Console, the first thing you should do is get the sitemap.

You then need to create an account for your domain or URL in Google Search Console. This process varies depending on your hosting service.

Once this is done, Google will give you the option to add the sitemap of your web page.

Once done, Google will update and show the new content published on your website regularly.

Add Google Analytics to your Shopify store

Google Analytics gives you access to accurate measurements of traffic and purchases for your Shopify store. Therefore, it is an essential tool to measure the performance of your SEO campaign.

The first thing you should do is create a new account for your website in Google Analytics. You will receive a tracking code that you must add to your Shopify store. To do this, you just have to log in to your Shopify account and click on “Preferences”, where you will see a box where you can paste the code.

Once this is done, you will start receiving SEO metrics about your website in your Google Analytics account.

Use only SEO optimized Shopify templates

When choosing a theme for your Shopify store, the obvious thing to do is to select one that has a lot of functionality and design elements that best match your brand.

However, there are a couple of even more important things to keep in mind.

First, make sure it's from a trusted developer and regularly updated. This way, you make sure it stays up to date with changes from Google and Shopify.

Second, pick a theme that works well on mobile. Google algorithms favor web pages that are optimized for mobile browsing.

Although it is true that a theme (template) of this quality increases the prices for creating an online store in Shopify, it is well worth that investment.

Install a secure certificate and publish your website under HTTPS

Search algorithms give preference to pages that work under secure connections (HTTPS) over insecure pages that work under HTTP. This is because the HTTPS pages use the SSL certificate to ensure the security of your data and there is a clear relationship between HTTPS and SEO.

Browsers often present security warnings when users enter an unsecured web page. This could negatively affect user trust in your Shopify store.

Naturally, having SSL on your Shopify store is something you can't overlook. If you're creating a new domain in Shopify, it's as easy as turning it on in your preferences, as this service is included in Shopify's subscription plans. If you're moving your store from another platform to Shopify, you'll need to do some extra technical work.

Optimize the SEO of the structure of your online store

If users do not quickly understand the structure of your web page, you run the risk of leaving it and increasing the fear bounce rate, which will negatively affect your SEO. Also, if users don't feel comfortable on your website, they are less likely to make a purchase.

Make sure to create an intuitive and simple structure that creates a smooth shopping experience.

Offer product collections on Shopify

The collections on Shopify They are groups of products that are normally distributed in different categories. Creating collections can increase conversions by reducing the journey users have to take to find relevant products.

But collections also have many benefits for your SEO. Search algorithms look at semantic connections to create a clear picture of your product listing. Using relevant keywords in your groups helps algorithms understand your website more easily. Thanks to the internal traffic that this generates, you will increase your chances of increasing your ranking on the results pages.

Remove duplicate pages and optimize canonical links

One of the most critical issues facing SEO on Spotify is page duplication. Shopify can duplicate your product pages and pagination.

Reducing these duplications is crucial to improving SEO on Shopify. When indexing a page, search algorithms must determine which is the canonical version (ie, the one to be indexed). If there are duplicates, you run the risk of the search engine indexing the wrong version and make it more difficult for the algorithms to understand the structure of your page.

To mitigate this issue, your Shopify store developer should work with canonical URL web addresses and optimize the structure of the URLs of the web page.

Speed ​​up the loading of your store in Shopify

A few seconds too long can make customers leave. Slow load times increase bounce rates and negatively affect search algorithm indicators. Well, Google takes into account the results that a web page obtains in the dreaded Core Web Vitals, keep an eye on them and improve the results as much as possible!

To make your Shopify store load faster, uninstall unnecessary plugins. There are hundreds of plugins that can enhance your store in different ways, but installing too many will increase load times and clutter up the website.

It also applies general improvements such as reducing redirects, compressing and using the web image formats appropriate and minimize JavaScript and CSS.

Research keywords for your business

Find the best keywords In eCommerce you have the difficulty that you are competing for many different products, each with several keywords. However, the principles are the same.

Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Google Search Console or ubersuggest to identify which keywords are most relevant to your audience.

create several types of keywords and long-tail variations and avoid generic keywords. Do not forget to look at which keywords work best in your publications.

Remember that the most important thing is the amount of conversion generated by the keywords, not the volume of traffic alone.

Rewrite the titles, URLs and META of your products

After knowing your keywords, all that remains is to implement them. Rewrite titles and meta descriptions and modify URLs to include keywords.

When writing product descriptions, add keywords where appropriate. Keep the descriptions short and try to make them attractive.

Take time to create unique descriptions

Writing accurate descriptions helps search engines better understand your page. But, even more important, a good description will make the product more attractive to the user.

Create eye-catching descriptions that align with your brand voice and are distinctive. This will help customers remember your brand.

Add ALT tags and title to your product images

You can improve the SEO of your images adding ALT tags and titles that contain relevant keywords.

This will help your images rank well on Google Images, which is an excellent source of traffic.

Blog and create a content strategy

Content is at the center of SEO strategies. Optimizing the SEO of your products mainly attracts commercial traffic, but the SEO of your content strategy opens the door to other types of traffic.

Create a blog with content that is relevant to your target audience. Here you can take advantage of the keyword research you did for your products.

Review and improve the internal linking of your Shopify store

You can use internal linking to drive more traffic to the most important pages of your Shopify store: the product and collection pages.

To achieve this, you can use your blog posts as a medium. Adding links to products and collections will strengthen the backlinking of your website, which will bring more traffic and improve overall SEO.

Get inbound links to your Shopify store

Search algorithms evaluate incoming links to your web page to assess how relevant it is to users. Generating more, higher quality inbound links will boost your SEO and increase organic traffic.

Vendor websites in your industry can be a good place to look for backlinks. Review which web pages are linking to your competition and try to include links to your store there. Do not hesitate to approach influencers and voices in your industry to generate quality links.

Get social signals to your online store

Having a good social media presence is crucial to strengthening your brand and growing your audience, but it also plays a role in Shopify SEO. To assess the authority of your website, search algorithms take into account your visibility on social networks.

Be sure to couple your networking strategy with your SEO to get social signals and be more visible to search engines.

Test all SEO optimizations in your Shopify

Finally, try everything! There is always room for improvement in Shopify SEO. This is a complex process and is full of occasions where mistakes can be made.

Prevents them from accumulating and evaluates through the A/B testing each element separately to obtain the best possible version of your web page.

Can we help you to do SEO web positioning in your Shopify?

All SEO efforts can be boiled down to the same thing: making life easier for users. Google rewards websites that keep this in mind, and improving Shopify SEO is no different.

That is why the items we have discussed in this article are aimed at improve the user experience : reduce loading times, have relevant descriptions, structure your page intuitively, be relevant to your audience, etc.

But, even if the motivations are simple, implementing SEO in Shopify is an arduous task. There are many details to take into account and sometimes technical knowledge is necessary. So the best way to make sure it goes right is to talk to experts like they are in a SEO agency, and at Xplora we have a diverse team of professionals who can help you with any challenge that arises in your Shopify online store. Contact us!