Shopify powers over four million businesses worldwide, including giants such as Gymshark, PepsiCo, Staples, and many more.
With 2.1 million active users daily, you can rest assured there are customers who’d be interested in what you’re selling.
However, Shopify success doesn’t happen overnight.
There’s a lot you need to do, but one of the most convenient ways to increase sales on Shopify is through SEO.
We’ll focus on the most important SEO Shopify tips you can easily follow to give your store a much-needed boost. By partnering with a Shopify development company, you can leverage their expertise in SEO optimization and gain valuable insights into optimizing your Shopify store for search engines. You can also hire a dedicated SEO company to boost your visibility.
P.S. If you were wondering how to increase sales in eCommerce, these tips can help with that too!
Table of Contents
1. Use Descriptive and Keyword-Rich Titles
It's no secret that SEO is important for Shopify, much like other eCommerce platforms.
But there’s one area often overlooked: product titles.
A well-optimized title can make a big difference in your store's search ranking, and, ultimately, your bottom line.
An unoptimized title won’t get you further than a single-digit click-through rate.
But if you’re willing to put in the effort, you can open the floodgates for organic traffic.
First, make your titles descriptive and keyword-rich.
This will help search engines understand what your product is and how it should be ranked.
For example, if you sell women's t-shirts, a title like "Women's T-shirt" is much more descriptive (and keyword-rich) than "T-shirt." You can include even more details and make your title “Women’s Cotton T-Shirt – Size Small – White.”
If you’re dealing with a generic product that’s hard to describe, use the SKU number as some people still search for it.
Second, keep your titles short and to the point. Long, rambling titles are confusing for both search engines and customers.
Aim for 50 characters or less, like in the example above.
Finally, don't forget to include your brand name in the title.
This will help customers find your product when they're searching for it by name.
By following these tips, you can ensure your product titles are optimized for both search engines and customers.
As a result, you'll see a boost in your search ranking and an increase in sales.
2. Optimize Your Product Descriptions
A well-written and keyword-rich product description can help your product show up in search results and attract clicks from potential customers.
81% of consumers research products online before making a purchase, so it’s only logical you provide shoppers with accurate product descriptions.
Even more so, 87% of shoppers say product content influences their buying decision, and 50% have returned an item as it didn’t match the product description.
98% of shoppers abandoned their carts because of incomplete or incorrect content.
But hey, no pressure.
The first rule of writing winning product descriptions for your Shopify store is to ensure your content is unique.
Research relevant keywords to understand what’s important to your buyers. Put that information front and center in your descriptions.
Here are a few pointers you can use to write converting product description:
- Keep it short and sweet. You don’t want to sound like Walt Whitman here. Your descriptions need to be concise and to the point.
- Use keywords judiciously. Don't stuff them in there just because. Instead, use them naturally and only if they flow well.
- Highlight your unique selling points. What makes your product special? Why should someone buy it from you? Make sure those reasons are clear in your description.
- Use persuasive language. Convince your customers they need your product. Use words like "must-have" or "can't live without."
3. Optimize Your Images
Having compelling product images that attract potential customers is a must.
Product photos support sales and highlight your brand’s professionalism.
Creating unique images can greatly help your store's search engine optimization.
But even if you can’t take pictures yourself, there’s no excuse not to add alt text -— the text that appears when you hover over an image on a website.
Many eCommerce stores use generic alt text like "product image" or "picture of product."
But if you take the time to create unique alt text for each of your images, you can help your store's SEO.
Basically, alt text gives context to search engine crawlers. It also helps those viewing a page with a screen reader.
Considering 22.6% of all internet searches go to Google Images, there’s plenty of room here to generate organic traffic for your store. Oh, it also accounts for 62.6% of Google Web Search and since Google is the most popular search engine, this is an opportunity you don’t want to miss out on.
To optimize your images, use keywords that describe your products and include them in the alt text.
This will help search engines understand what your products are and rank your store accordingly.
Note that you should also limit alt texts to 125 characters. Most of the assistive technologies read text in 125-character portions.
If you’re not sure how to add alt text, Shopify can help.
Even a little goes a long way when it comes to image optimization.
Back in 2011, a popular brand managed to increase its conversion rate by 27% just by adding the 360° rotating image feature.
4. Start a Blog
As a business owner, you wear a lot of different hats.
You're the CEO, the CFO, the janitor, and hopefully, the visionary.
It's a tough job, and sometimes it feels like there aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done.
But one thing you can't afford to forget is SEO.
It’s essential if you want to ensure your site comes up when people are looking for products or services like yours.
As a visionary, you’re in charge of coming up with different ways to boost your rankings.
And one of the best ways to improve your Shopify SEO is to start blogging since 77% of internet users read blogs.
Think about it this way: when you write a blog post, you're effectively creating a new web page for your site.
And each time you do that, you have an opportunity to include keywords and other phrases that will help your site come up in searches.
But it's not just about stuffing keywords into your posts.
A good blog post is interesting, informative, and helpful.
If you can provide value to your readers, they'll keep coming back for more—and they'll tell their friends about your site, too.
Industry experts will tell you a big chunk of online retail is typically done through blogs.
Enter the world of blog marketing to optimize your Shopify store and boost sales by tapping into the power of blogging communities.
How to Optimize Your Blog for Success
The most important thing you need to do when starting a blog is to prepare a content schedule in advance—even before launching it.
Once it’s up and running, update it regularly with fresh content.
You can use your blog to link to the products from your Shopify store.
If you build an online persona that people will love hearing from, you can increase your chances of influencing their purchasing decision.
When optimizing Shopify blogs for success, the goal is to build up your site's domain authority.
Increasing your site's domain authority helps you achieve positioning at the top of search pages.
To do this, develop your blog as a content hub and use the right kinds of backlinking practices.
This will help people find your site through search engines, which will in turn lead to higher conversion rates.
As far as writing is concerned, the key here is to go for quality over quantity.
Posting one or two new pieces of high-quality content several times a week is just enough to reap the benefits of a steady stream of incoming links and social shares on different platforms.
Needless to say, social media is a vital component for driving traffic to Shopify blogs.
Share links, images and videos on these platforms to get them shared by other people who have large followings.
There are many other ways to drive traffic and optimize Shopify blogs for success through search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.
Among these strategies are SEO techniques that involve link building, page and content optimization, social media marketing, guest blogging on authority sites—the list goes on and on.
All of this takes time, but the end results are well worth the effort.
5. Make Your Store Mobile-Friendly
Optimizing your Shopify design for mobile users is an important step to boost your SEO.
This is among the most valuable Shopify SEO tips and you shouldn’t take it for granted.
A short study published by Shopify showed that 66% of sales came from mobile during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
People who shop on mobile spend twice as much as those who aren’t using mobile, as Invesp explains.
To ensure visitors can access and navigate your website quickly and easily, use a responsive design that automatically adjusts the display of your content to match the screen size of any device.
As well as considering usability, it’s also essential to optimize all aspects of mobile design, from using larger font sizes to simplifying navigation options and creating an attractive layout.
Images have to be optimized for all devices so they don’t hinder page loading speeds.
The combination of these elements will help ensure visitors enjoy an optimal experience when interacting with your store, allowing you to reach more people through improved rankings in search engines.
6. Add Customer Reviews
Customer reviews can not only improve the conversion rate of your product pages but also help with SEO.
Generally speaking, eCommerce specialists agree that a 3% conversion rate is a good indicator of a store’s success.
If your conversion rate is 3.2% or higher, consider yourself a member of the best 20% of Shopify stores. The best 10% have a conversion rate of 4.7% and higher.
Including customer reviews and testimonials can help you be among the top sellers.
Google uses engagement signals like time spent on page and bounce rate when ranking websites, so having positive customer reviews can help improve these metrics and, in turn, help your products rank higher in search results.
Through reviews, real customers can share their experiences with your products and services, and this can create an influx of positive content for search engine crawlers to read.
Additionally, a higher number of reviews can also result in better rankings on search engines, as they view the presence of user-generated content as indicative of a website's trustworthiness.
Testimonials are another way to increase SEO potential; by leveraging the reputations of others who have used your store and experienced success, you demonstrate that both consumers and search engines should take note of what you have to offer.
7. Optimize Site Speed
One of the most important ranking factors for any website is site speed.
This is especially true for eCommerce sites, which need to be fast and responsive in order to provide a good user experience.
Just a one-second delay in load times can result in 11% fewer page views and 7% decrease in conversions.
There are a number of things you can do to optimize your site speed, but one of the best is to use a Shopify theme that is designed for speed.
There are many Shopify themes on the market, but not all of them are created equal.
Some themes are bloated with unnecessary features, which can slow down your site.
Others are poorly coded, which can also lead to performance issues.
By choosing a theme that is specifically designed for speed, you can be sure that your site will perform at its best.
In addition to using a fast Shopify theme, there are other things you can do to improve your site speed.
To optimize site speed, you should ensure that all images are compressed, minimize the use of JavaScript and CSS files, reduce any redirects, enable caching on your server, and minify HTML.
Additionally, consider using a CDN or external hosting solution to further increase the loading times of your content.
By taking these steps, you can ensure that your Shopify store loads quickly and provides a great user experience.
Making sure pages load quickly and efficiently can help improve your organic rankings, as well as provide visitors with a pleasant user experience.
SEO Shopify Tips: Key Takeaways
There are many ways to optimize a Shopify store for better SEO rankings.
With the right tips and know-how, you can create an effective strategy that brings more traffic to your website and gets customers interested in what your business has to offer.
Simple tweaks can work miracles for your traffic.
By ensuring titles, descriptions and content are keyword-rich, using alternative text on images, creating an effective internal link structure, or ensuring good content quality, you can boost your store's visibility online.
Additionally, optimizing your site speed, implementing a mobile-friendly design and keeping up with the latest SEO trends guarantees your store will remain competitive in the ever-changing digital landscape.
However, before you start your Shopify optimization journey, consider the Shopify pros and cons to determine if this is the right platform for you!
