Shopify SEO 2021 – The Guide to Optimizing Shopify

In the age of the internet, building a beautiful online store is not enough to convince customers to make a purchase. 

It is necessary to understand how search engines can find your store because this helps the customers reach your online store easily. 

So, the higher you rank in the search engines, the more traffic your store will have which ultimately paves the way to increased sales.

If you have a Shopify store, it must already be packed with many SEO-friendly features that help you rank better. Still, there is a lot more you can do to improve your ranking.

Read more to find out how you can optimize your Shopify store:

What is Shopify?  

Shopify is the leading e-commerce platform that allows businesses to set up their online stores and sell products online. 

It supports businesses of all shapes and sizes. Whether you sell in-store, on social media, online, or just any other place, Shopify has got you covered. Store owners can also take advantage of, dynamics Shopify integration which helps with automation and data management in real-time.

Here are some of the products and services that you can sell on Shopify:

• Digital Products
• Physical Products
• Memberships
• Services and Consultations
• Ticketed Experiences
• Rentals
• Classes and Lessons

What is Shopify SEO?

Shopify SEO refers to search engine optimization, which is unique to Shopify more than any other platform. Although Shopify comes with multiple features, which are useful for SEO, it has some limitations too. 

Optimizing the content for search engines can help your store appear on top of search results increasing customer engagement and interest. 

Read on further to learn more about Shopify optimization. 

How can you Optimize Shopify?

Whether you are an emerging seller or have an established business, Shopify can help you grow.

To optimize your Shopify store in 2021, you need to go through these six steps: 

1. Optimize Shopify Shop Structure

The organization of the content on your page is essential to SEO success.

If customers can easily navigate your site to find what they are looking for, they are more likely to spend time on your site and view more content, which is crucial for increasing and maintaining search engine rankings.

To make a site easy to navigate, you do not need to add a lot of categories and subcategories. A more straightforward site structure makes it easy for customers to navigate sites and for search engines to rank your site. Below are the popular structures you can follow:

• Homepage > Category Pages > Product Page
• Homepage > Category Pages > Sub- Category Page > Product Pages

In addition to these pages, the availability of an About page and a Contact page shows customers and search engines that you are a trustworthy and credible business.

2. Improve User Experience

For improving the user experience, a few things are essential to consider, such as the site speed and responsive design. Providing your customers with complete product information like data-rich product attributes such as category, material, size, weight, color, etc. This will help to improve the user experience and also enhance the conversion rate.

If your site speed is good, visitors can easily navigate it and access everything on it quickly. It causes no frustration to them, so they tend to spend more time on your site.

You can use a mobile-friendly theme and smaller images. Using sliders and not removing unused apps is not advisable.

Using a responsive design for Shopify stores means your store will customize its interface according to the device without losing its visual appeal. 

It is a great way to improve the user experience and keep visitors on your pages longer.

3. Search for the Right Target Keywords

The foundation of SEO success is keyword research, so any Shopify SEO guide is incomplete without tips for better keyword research.

Additional resource: Shopify SEO

To start well with keyword research, you do not need to use fancy tools, all you need is to create a list of a few topics that are closely related to your products and customer preferences.

For this, you must put yourself in the customers' shoes to understand the terms and interests they may search for to find out the products you are selling.

4. Optimize Shopify Products Pages

At this point, you must have a logical site structure and a list of keywords. Next, you can optimize your site's pages using those keywords.

You can start with the top pages first- like the homepage, product catalog, and top-selling products pages. 

To make it simpler for buyers to discover your items by category, you may arrange them into Shopify collections.

Even if you are starting a brand new store, it is still essential to optimize your homepage. For this, you can use keywords consistently on different pages and create original content for meta titles and the product descriptions.

It is important to optimize keywords for SEO by connecting them to the images on the site and tags that may be searched for while ensuring the use of formal language for the keywords rather than slang. 

5. Build Backlinks to Your Store

Backlinks are essential for SEO because search engines use them to determine how most of the audience within the general populace views your site. 

It is a strategy for off-page optimization to assist your establishment of credibility and trustworthiness.

To get links back to your store, read a few tips listed below:

• As an authorized retailer looking to sell products made and supplied by an established company, you can email them to ask if they can link to your store.
• You can reach out to influencers and industry leaders for interviews to generate links as well as promotional content.
• You can hunt out broken links for services and products similar to the ones you offer, and then connect to the site's owner displaying the broken link to have them link back to your store instead. In this way, they will repair a broken link, and you will get a backlink.

6. Improve Ranking with Content Marketing

Content is what brings people to your site. As an eCommerce store owner, you may consider product descriptions as enough content for your site or skimp on it.

Taking time to develop original content adds a lot to your overall better user experience. 

You can make a list of anything your customers ask you or may want answers to. Since only providing product information is not enough, you should provide them with accurate answers.

Through content marketing, you can let your customers know more about you than what you are selling. It is also beneficial for your site's SEO.

Conclusion:

For many years, a growing number of users have been using Shopify as a platform for their business. For those users, it is essential to learn what common tweaks they can make to optimize their Shopify store.

An optimized Shopify store will undoubtedly have more traffic and more sales. 

Hence, it is advisable to make your store rank higher in the search engines by implementing all SEO guidelines designed to increase and maintain higher ranks for your stores within search engines.

Photo by Roberto Cortese on Unsplash