Top of the shops: your go-to checklist on SEO for Shopify
If you’re looking to get your store ranking higher in the SERPS, using technical tricks and essential SEO for Shopify should be top of your list. However, if you’re just starting out, understanding how this site actually gains traction and indexes can feel impossible.
With the Shopify platform hosting over 1,000,000 small to large businesses across the globe, ensuring your shop doesn’t just look good to users – but appeals to search engines – is crucial.
In this post, our in-house experts have created a handy SEO checklist to help you out. From getting your store to the top of the search results to getting the most out of Shopify’s features, we’re going to cover the essentials.
Expect everything from content strategy insights, link-building optimisation, and technical checks, designed to get you top of the shops.
Starting with SEO on Shopify
Like most online shopping platforms, Shopify does have some pre-existing SEO features. Redirects and blog publishing can both be useful strings to your strategy’s bow, but they can cause headaches with forced URL structures and duplicates, whether that’s page titles or the content itself.
Or instead of doing it yourself – our SEOs are more than happy to help! Why not book a consultation?
Fail to prepare or prepare to fail. Before we get into the nitty-gritty, there are a few things you need in your toolkit, first.
Tip: open the following in a ‘tool’ tab and bounce back to them as you work your way through the checklist.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console allows you to search performance, spot any crawl errors, and submit your sitemap for that all-important indexing.
Google Analytics
You can use GA to track website traffic, monitor user behaviour and conversions to help you get a better sense of your audience, and measure overall SEO success.
Keyword Research Tools
You can use SEO tools such as Answer the Public, SERanking, or Ahrefs to help you better identify relevant keywords – including key metrics such as search volume and user intent.
Starting with SEO Optimisation (on-page)
Now you’ve got the basics, keep the good work going by carrying out solid on-page SEO work across your site.
First, start by optimising micro bits of data such as meta descriptions and title tags throughout. You can do this by including (but not stuffing!) keywords and relevant information in these sections, leading to better CTRs and boosted rankings where possible.
Supplement this activity with SEO-friendly URLs with the same method, as well as optimising any product pages with informative descriptions and a strong internal linking structure.
Technical SEO fixes
Once your on-page SEO has been established, checking that everything is working internally is next on your list.
Crawling your site is the best way to spot any errors such as broken links or misdirects that can stop search engines from indexing your site correctly. Use platforms such as Screaming Frog to help you get started.
From here, you can also check if your robots.txt file is facilitating this while submitting your sitemap.xml file straight to Google Search Console for a speedier process.
Even though broken links can stop crawlers, you should also focus on creating a strong internal linking strategy in the first place.
This should connect relevant, topical pages together and syphon views evenly throughout your store – which can be improved by implementing scheme markups, too. These give Google a better indication of your brand and the products on sale.
You can do these by yourself, but for ultimate peace of mind, our technical SEOs can also run audits and crawls as part of a wider strategy.
We’ll touch on this next.
Good content first
No website is built equal.
Strong SEO foundations don’t get far without solid content, so develop a strategy that creates valuable and informative pieces that will drive traffic to your site – and compel them to click. This can include a variety of videos, blog posts, long-form guides, informative product descriptions, and much more.
From here, you can also earn respected, top-authority backlinks from tried and trusted websites to boost your domain authority and search ranking – signaling to Google that your website is a go-to for those in the industry.
Finishing touches
- Optimise everything, including images: Use keyword-rich filenames and descriptive alt tags to boost image SEO.
- Ratings and reviews: Trust markers are everything to search engines, so why not encourage customer reviews to build authority and boost those rankings?
- Stay Updated: SEO best practices move fast – so make sure you stay on top of the latest updates and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Need technical SEO? Embryo can help.
Shopify – and SEO itself – isn’t one size fits all. But by following this checklist and working through the steps where possible, you can make strides toward improving your Shopify store.
Perfect for when you need those search engine rankings soaring and organic traffic and sales booming.
Of course, that’s easier said than done.
If you need a little extra help creating an all-round strategy, our SEO and content experts here to make your Shopify work for you – and Google.
Our in-house team has years of experience in creating bespoke plans for clients across the board, with a proven track record of cultivating incredible results.
To get key insights into your SEO, get in touch with us today!
