Magento search engine optimization (SEO) can significantly increase your shop’s traffic and online presence by improving your visibility on search engines. Improved visibility leads to higher search engine rankings while attracting more potential customers.
In this guide, we’ll provide an expert overview of the top Magento SEO features, the best practices, and our recommended extensions to maximize your success.
Table of Contents
- What Is Magento SEO?
- How Can Google Discover Your Magento Site?
- Top 7 Magento SEO Features You Should Utilize
- Magento Search Engine Optimization: Best Practices To Follow
- Top Magento SEO Extensions
- 5 Tips To Improve Your Magento SEO
- 3 Magento SEO Mistakes To Avoid
- Wrapping Up on Magento SEO
- Magento SEO FAQs
What Is Magento SEO?
Magento is renowned for its SEO features and prompts that enable you to improve your site’s search ranking and online presence. This includes canonical tags, sitemaps, and robots.txt files to help improve your online visibility and search engine position.
Magento’s popularity as an open-source eCommerce platform earned it a place in the top five eCommerce providers by estimated market share in 2025.
How Can Google Discover Your Magento Site?
Before we dive into the top Magento SEO features, let’s look at how your eCommerce site (or any website in general) appears on Google’s search engine result pages (SERPs).
It starts with crawling, where a web crawler (web spiders and Googlebots) finds your pages online, follows the hyperlinks on those pages, and “fetches” their data until all the pages are indexed or stored.
Indexing is when you ask Google to notice your new page or post. This is your way of telling Google, “Hey, I added something new to my site, and you should look through it.”
Think of an index as Google’s database. When users search, for example, “What are the top brands for sportswear?” Google scours its database to find every page that includes those keywords, synonyms of your keywords, and pages that might answer the search intent. This is how your site shows up on Google when your keywords match your user’s search query.
Top 7 Magento SEO Features You Should Utilize
You can access Magento 2 SEO features by navigating to your admin panel. From there, go to the “Marketing” section and click “SEO & Search.” Here, you can manage your sitemap settings, tags, redirects, and more.
Here are the top Magento SEO features you can utilize to improve your search engine position and increase your website’s traffic.
1. XML Sitemap
Imagine going to a supermarket you’ve never been to before. Since you aren’t familiar with the layout and where the items are in the store, you must navigate each aisle to find what you’re looking for. Wouldn’t it be easier if someone gave you a map, right when you walked in the door? A similar logic applies to sitemaps.
Sitemaps contain a list of all your page URLs. Submitting these sitemaps to search engines like Google makes it easy for its crawlers to crawl your site and index the exact content you want to appear on SERPs — say, your new pages that contain your latest products.
2. Robots.txt
Robots.txt informs search engine crawlers which pages they can crawl (or not crawl) and index. It’s typically used to manage crawler traffic to your site and prevent certain pages from appearing on Google.
So, why use Robots.txt on your Magento site? If you have low-performing products — say, a perfume that wasn’t a hit — you can configure your robots.txt files to hide the page for that product.
To hide product pages, mark them with the nofollow or noindex tags. You can also configure your Magento site’s robots.txt file by following these steps:
- In your admin sidebar, click on Content, Design, then Configuration
- Locate the “Store View” you want to adjust and select “Edit”
- Click on the “Search Engine Robots” dropdown
- Add your robots.txt commands in the “Edit custom instruction of robots.txt File” field
3. SEO-Friendly URLs
A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a unique web address for a certain page. While long URLs don’t directly impact your ranking on SERPs, a short and readable URL improves click-through rates and allows easier monitoring. In addition, short URLs are more memorable and give better credibility to your brand.
Fortunately, Magento 2 has a built-in functionality that shortens your URLs. You can also install an extension such as URL Rewrite Regeneration to configure and shorten your product URLs.
4. Canonical Tags
Multiple URLs pointing to the same product cause duplicate content. However, if Google sees similar content on different sites, the content will be excluded from SERPs.
For example, let’s say you tag black sweatpants in both the “casual” and “sports” categories, causing two separate links to lead to the same product or content. Or if you copy and paste a product description from your manufacturer’s site and recycle the exact same description on your website.
To fix these instances, you can utilize the Canonical Tags feature to manage duplicate content and disregard other identical content on your Magento site. Follow these steps:
- Go to the Admin panel in your Magento backend
- Look for “Use Canonical Meta Tag for Categories” and “Use Canonical Meta Tag for Products,”
- Choose “Yes” from the dropdown.
5. HTTPS
If your site isn’t secure, your customers may be hesitant to enter their payment details when making a purchase. This is where Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) comes in. HTTPS is an internet communication protocol that safeguards the data shared between your site and your user’s network.
Data sent using HTTPS is protected using a Transport Layer Security protocol (TLS) that offers three layers of protection: encryption, data integrity, and authentication.
Enable your HTTPS in Magento 2 with these steps:
- Change your image settings by going to Stores, Configuration, General, then Web
- Click on Base URLs (Secure) and configure the values of Secure Base URL and Secure Base Link URL, ensuring that they start with “https”.
- Click on “Yes” for the following fields:
- Use Secure URLs on Storefront
- Use Secure URLs in Admin
- Enable HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS)
- Upgrade Insecure Requests
In addition, upgrade your Magento 2 website to the latest version to keep your site protected.
6. Redirects
Redirects in Magento are crucial for maintaining SEO integrity and ensuring a smooth user experience. They help manage changes in URL structures, such as when a product is discontinued, moved, or a page is deleted.
The following are the two main types of redirects:
- 301 redirects: These are permanent redirects that transfer the SEO value of the old URL to the new one. They are essential when you permanently move or delete pages.
- 302 redirects: These are temporary redirects that you use when a page is temporarily unavailable. They don’t transfer SEO value, which makes them ideal for short-term changes.
Magento allows you to manage redirects easily through its built-in tools. You can set up and manage redirects from the admin panel under the URL Rewrites section.
7. Structured Data
Structured data is a feature that lets you provide search engines with useful information about a site’s content. Adding structured data to a Magento store helps search engines understand the context of its pages.
Key benefits of using structured data include the following:
- Improved search visibility: Structured data can enhance your search listings with additional information like product prices, reviews, and availability.
- Better click-through rates (CTR): Rich snippets can improve CTR by directly providing users with more information in the search results.
- Enhanced SEO: While not a direct ranking factor, structured data is useful as it tells search engines about your content, potentially improving overall SEO.
In Magento, you can implement structured data by manually adding schema markup to your templates or using SEO extensions. Popular extensions include pre-configured schema types, breadcrumbs, and reviews.
Magento Search Engine Optimization: Best Practices To Follow
From implementing an SEO-friendly URL structure to adding SEO extensions, here are the SEO best practices to improve your eCommerce site’s search ranking and website traffic:
- Implement an SEO-Friendly URL Structure
- Write Unique Product Descriptions
- Optimize Your Images
- Integrate SEO Extensions
1. Implement an SEO-Friendly URL Structure
Implementing an SEO-friendly URL structure allows you to incorporate relevant keywords for your product or category pages to position them on search engines. For example, you can use this structure for your product, category, and sub-category pages:
- Product page: Your domain name/category-sub-category/product-name/
- Category page: Your domain name/category/
- Sub-category page: Your domain name/category/sub-category/
2. Write Unique Product Descriptions
Your products are the real star of the show. Unique product descriptions can help answer potential questions and provide key information to help nudge your visitors to convert. While it may be tempting to recycle product descriptions from your manufacturer, it can lead to duplicate content issues.
Duplicate content confuses Google, making it choose between identical pages to decide which should rank in the top results. This can prevent your page from being displayed on SERPs.
To create product descriptions that sell, think of your customer’s wants and pain points and address them.
3. Optimize Your Images
Consumers also explore new products and websites through image searches. This is why you need to optimize your product images for search engines.
To improve your image for SEO:
- Compress your product images: Unfortunately, high-quality images have large file sizes, which can cause your website to slow down. Compress your images to reduce image sizes and improve your site’s loading speed.
- Create descriptive file names: Clearly describe your images and insert the keyword you’re ranking for in your file names. Descriptive file names allow Google to understand your images and display them when your users enter relevant searches.
- Utilize alt tags: An alt tag or alt description is an HTML attribute that offers a text alternative for search engines to display when your user’s browser doesn’t show your product images. Creating alt tags for your images allows search engines and users to know what your images contain. Like descriptive file names, alt tags should include keywords you’re trying to rank for on SERPs.
4. Integrate SEO Extensions
While Magento already has built-in SEO features that allow you to personalize and shorten URLs, optimize meta tags, canonical tags, and alt tags, and configure robots.txt files, Magento SEO extensions allow you to simplify the SEO process.
You can use Magento SEO extensions to do the following:
- Increase functionality with user-friendly Magento eCommerce features such as product searches and an easy checkout process
- Improve backend efficiency to help you manage your store, analytics, and inventory
- Reach a wider audience thanks to language translation extensions
- Increase your online visibility by ranking your site higher on SERPs
To better guide you in this process, here are the dos and don’ts to consider when selecting your Magento 2 extensions:
- Do’s:
- Make a wish list of the SEO features you want/
- Allot the budget to spend on premium Magento extensions.
- Ensure the extensions are compatible with your version of Magento.
- Talk to a team of Magento developers and get their support and recommendations before integrating extensions.
- Take advantage of free extensions.
- Don’ts:
- Don’t select extensions that don’t have developer’s support.
- Don’t overstuff your Magento platform with unnecessary extensions.
- Don’t integrate extensions that aren’t compatible with your Magento version.
- Don’t download extensions from unreliable sources.
Top Magento SEO Extensions
Need help simplifying your Magento store’s SEO? Here’s our list of top choices for Magento SEO extensions selected by our experts.
- Super Easy SEO by Magenest
- Magento 2 SEO Extension by Mageplaza
- Magento 2 Rich Snippets
- SEO Toolkit by Amasty
- Magento 2 SEO Plugin From FME Extensions
- URL Rewrite Regeneration
- Ultimate SEO Suite Plugin From Aheadworks
- Magento 2 SEO Suite From Swissuplabs
- Magento 2 SEO Extension by Webkul
1. Super Easy SEO by Magenest
Living up to its name, Super Easy SEO by Magenest is an all-in-one solution that makes SEO a breeze for your Magento e-store. It allows you to ditch manual input of SEO metadata for over 10,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs), enables search engines to find your products with image alt tags, and prevents duplicate content.
This extension also offers free lifetime software updates and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Super Easy SEO by Magenest features include:
- Crawling and indexing
- Structured data markup
- Cross-links
- SEO content quality audit
- Category SEO templates
2. Magento 2 SEO Extension by Mageplaza
If you’re looking for an affordable yet robust solution that offers SEO features such as URL rewrite, canonical link meta tag, and sitemap integration, Magento 2 SEO Extension is for you. Magento 2 SEO Extension enables you to increase your online presence and rank higher on SERPs, allowing you to generate more traffic to your site.
Magento 2 SEO Extension by Mageplaza features include:
- Canonical link meta tag
- Canonical URLs
- Image optimization
- Sitemap integration
- URL rewrite
3. Magento 2 Rich Snippets
Magento 2 Rich Snippets displays your site’s key information on Google search results, including product sizes, ratings, and colors.
Magento 2 Rich Snippets features include:
- Rich snippets
- Product reviews
- Indexing
4. SEO Toolkit by Amasty
SEO Toolkit by Amasty is an all-in-one extension that allows your site to rank among the top positions on Google with powerful tools, such as a one-click SEO analysis, redirect, pagination, and adding rich snippets. It allows you to save money on paid ads and gives you control over your SEO.
SEO Toolkit by Amasty features include:
- Rich snippets
- Meta tag templates
- Unique product URL automation
- Internal and external cross links
- Redirects and pagination
- Sitemaps
5. Magento 2 SEO Plugin From FME Extensions
If automation and a cost-effective solution are what you’re looking for to handle your site’s SEO, Magento 2 SEO from FME extensions has you covered. This SEO plug-in enables your site to reduce your search engine optimization workload and improves your search ranking.
Magento 2 SEO plugin features include:
- Meta titles, descriptions, and keywords automation
- Image alt tag optimization
- Canonical tags
- Rich snippet
- Hreflang support
- Sitemaps
6. URL Rewrite Regeneration
While Magento 2 allows you to configure your URLs and remove .htmls, it doesn’t have the option to regenerate URL rewrites for your products. This is where the URL Rewrite Regeneration extension comes in.
URL Rewrite Regeneration features include:
- Indexing
- URL rewrites
- Multiple storefront support
7. Ultimate SEO Suite Plugin From Aheadworks
Ultimate SEO Suite prevents duplicate content from occurring thanks to canonical tags. Canonical tags inform crawlers which duplicate pages you want to promote, giving you control over which URL displays on search results.
Ultimate SEO Suite Plugin from Aheadworks features include:
- Canonical URLs on your sitemap to increase opportunities for your page to be indexed
- Google sitemap pictures support allows Google to index pictures and add your page to picture search
- Auto-change to canonical URLs to automatically update your product URLs to canonical URLs
- Complete multi-store support
8. Magento 2 SEO Suite From Swissuplabs
Magento 2 SEO Suite from Swissuplabs is an affordable SEO extension packed with SEO features, such as rich snippets, canonical tags, and XML sitemap.
Magento 2 SEO Suite from Swissuplabs features include:
- Meta tag automation
- Sitemaps
- SEO-friendly URL automation
- Rich snippets
- Hreflang support
9. Magento 2 SEO Extension by Webkul
Magento 2 SEO Extension by Webkul offers a variety of features to improve your e-store’s SEO. From displaying rich snippets of your products and categories on SERPs to allowing your customers to share your products on Twitter and Facebook, this SEO extension has you covered.
Magento 2 SEO Extension by Webkul features include:
- CMS pages which allow you to create, edit, and publish your website content without utilizing code
- Product and category-rich snippets
- Sitemaps
- Hreflang support
- SEO meter for Magento
- Sitelinks search box
- Search engine robots
5 Tips To Improve Your Magento SEO
Applying effective SEO strategies can help you rank higher in search engine results. Here are five actionable tips to improve your Magento SEO:
- Optimize product pages: Use unique and descriptive titles, meta descriptions, and keywords for each product page. Include high-quality images with alt text for better search engine indexing.
- Create quality content: Regularly publish informative and engaging content related to your products. Providing quality content attracts visitors and encourages other sites to link to your website.
- Improve site speed: Fast-loading pages enhance user experience and SEO. You can reduce load times by compressing images and taking advantage of caching.
- Leverage internal linking: Link relevant products and content within your site to improve navigation and SEO. This will help search engines understand your site’s structure and hierarchy.
- Implement structured data: Add schema markup to your pages to provide detailed information about your products to search engines. Doing so results in enhanced search results like rich snippets that increase a site’s visibility.
3 Magento SEO Mistakes To Avoid
Even with a strong SEO strategy, certain pitfalls can hinder your Magento store’s performance. Knowing and avoiding these mistakes is vital for maintaining high search engine rankings and driving consistent traffic.
The following are three key Magento SEO mistakes to steer clear of:
1. Ignoring Duplicate Content
Duplicate content can severely impact your search engine rankings. It confuses search engines by making it difficult to determine which page to rank.
Ensure each product has unique descriptions and avoid copying manufacturer descriptions verbatim. You can also use canonical tags to indicate the preferred version of a page when duplicates are unavoidable.
2. Neglecting Mobile Optimization
Failing to optimize a site for mobile can lead to lost traffic. Mobile-friendly sites rank higher in search results, so ensure your Magento store is responsive and loads quickly on all devices. You can identify issues by running tests on your site using various screen sizes. Consider using Google’s mobile-friendly test tool to verify your site’s performance.
3. Poor URL Structure
A messy URL structure can confuse both users and search engines. That’s why it’s important to use clear, descriptive URLs that reflect the content of a page. Avoid using long, complex ones with unnecessary parameters.
Applying a clean and logical URL structure ensures an ideal user experience and helps search engines index your pages more effectively.
Wrapping Up on Magento SEO
Magento is one of the best eCommerce platforms today, thanks to its usability and built-in SEO features. While you can rely on Magento’s default SEO settings, taking it a step further and installing helpful extensions can help you increase the visibility of your brand.
Some of Magento’s top SEO features that you can utilize and configure include XML Sitemap, robots.txt, SEO-friendly URLs, canonical tags, and HTTPS.
To further streamline your SEO process, follow SEO best practices, including:
- Implement an SEO-friendly URL structure
- Write unique product descriptions
- Optimize your images
- Integrate SEO extensions
Outsourcing the services of some of the best SEO companies and specialized Magento agencies can help you with this.
Magento SEO FAQs
1. Is Magento SEO-friendly?
Yes, Magento is SEO-friendly because it offers built-in SEO features like customizable URLs, meta tags, and sitemaps. These tools help make your site easy to discover by search engines so people can readily find it.
2. Why should I invest in Magento SEO?
You should invest in Magento SEO because it significantly boosts your site’s visibility and attracts more organic traffic. This leads to higher sales, better brand recognition, and a competitive advantage in the market.
3. Is Magento better than WooCommerce for SEO?
Magento is generally considered better than WooCommerce for SEO because it offers more advanced built-in SEO features and customization options. However, the best choice depends on your technical expertise and the needs of your eCommerce business.
