By the Shopify Team
Introduction
Google processes over 3.5 billion searches daily, and searches contribute up to 80% of the traceable traffic to websites. It’s no surprise that 82% of marketers say that search engine optimization has a positive impact on business goals.
“Search engine optimization is an excellent form of inbound marketing, where the consumer has a need and finds you to solve it,” says Greg Bernhardt, SEO specialist at Shopify. “SEO is about organizing your web content to communicate better with search engines, which can in turn deliver the search results you receive with the solution you provide.”
So, how can you optimize your website for search engines? Whether you run a blog or an online store, this SEO checklist will help you improve the entire process.
Basic SEO Checklist
Buying a domain and setting up a website doesn’t automatically mean the site is ready for SEO. Let’s start with the basic SEO checklist. Set up Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free tool that allows site owners to monitor their website traffic, track search performance, and find any issues that may prevent their site from ranking.
Go to the sign-up page to create your Google Search Console account. Verify your domain so Google can ensure that you’re the site owner before providing services to you. Learn how to verify your Shopify domain to use Google services. Set up Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing is the second-largest search engine in the U.S. and accounts for 15% of all searches.
Bing Webmaster Tools is a free service from Microsoft that allows you to add your store to the Bing search engine. Open a free account in Bing Webmaster Tools by going to the sign-up page, then add and verify your website to appear in Bing search results. Submit a sitemap
A sitemap tells Google and other search engines about the organization of your site.
All Shopify stores automatically generate a sitemap file, which showcases your individual web pages. If you are using the WordPress content management system, install the Yoast SEO plugin to create a sitemap. Shopify store owners can access their sitemaps at www.yourstore.com/sitemap.xml.
Submit your sitemap to Google and Bing through the webmaster accounts you just created. Set up Google Analytics
Google Analytics shares data on how people interact with your website. Once set up, you can segment your general visitors to monitor how people engage with your site after arriving via a search engine.
Set up a Google Analytics account and add your web property. Then, add a data stream by entering your Google tag ID into the website hosted by your content management system, such as Shopify or WordPress. Consider SEO tools
Keeping up with changes in algorithms, search rankings, and competitors’ keywords is difficult but essential for online businesses. There are both paid and free SEO tools that you can use to achieve your search goals. You are already one step ahead by setting up Google Search Console and Analytics.
Paid SEO tools: Moz for a complete SEO marketing package Ahrefs, a comprehensive SEO toolkit for auditing, research, tracking, and more Semrush, another SEO tool to track keywords and explore competitor sites, and more Keywords Everywhere for simple keyword research
Tools
Free SEO tools: Surfer SEO is a free Chrome extension for research data and content guidelines. Keyword.io for free keyword suggestions. Screaming Frog to find crawl errors on your website. MozBar for SEO research on the go.
Online Shopify stores have built-in SEO features to help you optimize your content. Some aspects are handled automatically: canonical tags are added to the pages to prevent duplicate content in search engine results pages, and robots.txt and sitemap.xml files are created for your website, along with automatically generated title tags from the template that include your store’s name.
We also recommend downloading an app like Plug in SEO Optimizer for your Shopify store. It’s similar to Yoast SEO in WordPress. It will help you run SEO audits, fix broken links, add redirects, and optimize title and technical description tags in HTML, and more. Check your site’s indexing.
Your website needs to be indexed by a search engine to appear in search results. The quickest way to find out if your site is indexed is by performing a site search (i.e., site:yourdomain.com).
If nothing appears, your site is not indexed. Keep in mind that for new sites, indexing can take up to a week after submitting the sitemap.
Stores on Shopify trial plans are indexed. If you are not on a paid plan, the work you do will disappear as soon as the free trial ends. It’s also important to remove password protection from your pages, even if you are still working on some. This way, Google can start crawling and indexing your site. Shopify domains are indexed in Google. On-page SEO checklist.
Preparing your individual pages for ranking takes time and effort. After all, you’ll be competing with some already well-known brands. Follow this on-page SEO checklist to ensure your web pages are optimized as well as possible. Conduct keyword research.
Use keyword research tools from Moz, Ahrefs, or Semrush to determine keyword search volume and get keyword ideas. (When we say “search volume,” we mean the approximate number of monthly searches for a specific keyword).
Identify the keywords your target audience is likely to search for and determine the search intent for each. Then, assign keywords to content types. Each page on your site – product pages, category pages, blog articles, and the homepage – can rank for different keywords.
For example, blog articles can target informational searches (“What is aromatherapy?”), while product pages target lower-volume keywords but indicate a purchasing intent (“Buy aromatherapy bottles”). Optimize your title tag.
Title tags (H1) serve as the main title for the page and typically contain the primary keywords for the page. Search engines use this information to understand the context of the page.
There has been some debate about how many title tags (H1) you can use on each page. The best practice still involves including only one tag, but if you are optimizing a larger site, consider testing splitting the number of H1 tags on each page.
Note that Shopify page titles are the default H1 tag for pages created through Shopify. Write compelling title tags.
Visible
In search results, it’s only part of the task. You also need to convince users to visit your page by clicking on other options. Title tags – the blue clickable links that appear in search engine results – help with that.
The best practices for optimizing title tags are: Writing compelling page titles that can be easily read by humans. Clearly describing the content on the page, including important keywords, and making it enticing enough to click. Keeping your title tag under 60 characters. Backlinko found that title tags between 40 and 60 characters have the highest click-through rates. Including primary keywords at the beginning. Encouraging searchers to click on your result and proving to search engines that your site reflects the search term by presenting the primary keyword at the start of the title tag. An example of a title tag and meta description from Shopify’s e-commerce guide.
Improve your meta description
The meta description is a small snippet of text that appears below the title tag in search results. The text you write here should describe the content on the page and be compelling enough to click.
The meta description serves two purposes: to give your target audience a first impression of you in search results, so it should be compelling if you want to attract more potential customers to click on your page link and visit your Shopify store or e-commerce site. Mark Hardgrove, CEO of The Hoth, knows the value of the meta description, “The meta description serves two purposes: to give your target audience a first impression of you in search results, so it should be compelling if you want to attract more potential customers to click on your page link and visit your Shopify store or e-commerce site.”
Include targeted keywords and strong text at the beginning of your meta description, and try to avoid exceeding 155 characters. Include a keyword in your page title
URLs tell search engines about your page content. Include the target keyword but ensure that URLs are short and straightforward and avoid using unnecessary words.
Since search engines and visitors read your URLs, you should follow some good practices: Make URLs readable. Use dashes instead of underscores. Include target keywords. Your goal is to keep the structure of your URLs simple. Organize your content so that URLs are created in a way that is understandable to humans. Read Google’s guide on URL structure for more information. Write descriptive alt text for images
To ensure your images appear in image results, name each image file something descriptive (i.e., don’t name an image “83798.jpg”).
Write descriptive alt text that explains the content of each image – a good practice that helps search engines understand the image content and makes the content accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired. Add schema markup
Schema markup helps Google better understand the content of your website. It organizes data in a specific way that allows page information to show up directly in search results, which can lead to increased click-through rates and more site traffic.
For example, this article from Shopify that ranks at the top for “online selling sites” uses schema markup. The Shopify marketplace guide displays question and answer boxes through schema markup.
If
You were using this checklist to improve an eCommerce site, so here’s an example of how Couplet Coffee uses schema markup to display its five-star rating and customer reviews. Couplet Coffee shows the product rating and customer reviews in Google search results.
Setting up schema requires continuous learning. Follow the getting started guide from schema.org or seek help from a web developer.
Content Checklist
As Jake Mundy, founder of Custom Neon, says, “Relevant, interesting, helpful, or even entertaining content on your site encourages visitors to stay longer, which helps improve search engine rankings.” Let’s review the SEO content checklist to help you optimize your website content.
Develop a Content Marketing Strategy
Creating and implementing a comprehensive content marketing strategy takes months. If you are quickly using this checklist, use these exercises to get started. Have a brainstorming session for customer questions. Think of the questions customers might have when they are aware of your product category but not fully informed. Use keyword research tools to match those questions with search terms. Content ideas should align with the actual terms people are searching for. Use tools like Answer the Public, Google Autosuggest, or Keywords Everywhere to find these questions. Help customers get more value from your products. Have you noticed how many stores sell food products that include simple recipes? This is a smart approach for many products – often, customers are not expert users and may not understand tips and tricks to get the most out of their purchase.
Chris Zachar, an SEO strategist at Intergrowth, states, “A blog is important because it’s a way to show Google that you know what you’re talking about. When you publish useful and informative content on your website, your visitors will share it, and other websites will link to you. That shows Google you have expertise, that you are knowledgeable, and that you are trustworthy. From there – as long as your website is technically sound – your rankings will improve.” Format the content for easy reading
Clear and concise content is valuable.
However, there is often a need for the necessary length of text to adequately answer a question and has a chance to appear in search results. Most questions deserve at least several hundred words, but many exceed that; the top ten results on Google average 1,447 words. Robert Lehman, owner of Fair Wind Fasteners, says, “Great content utilizes keywords and search terms in H1, H2, and H3 tags. This allows Google and other search engines to know the content of the page and confirm the website as a reliable source for that content, boosting the rankings across the site.” Format your content with short texts and paragraphs
Diverse short sentences and paragraphs to avoid overwhelming visitors with walls of text. Use the following content formatting tips to make your content easy to digest: Add a table of contents using jump links – a tactic that can secure featured snippets. Use multimedia such as infographics, videos, or graphics. Break sections using bullet points. Use Hemingway to diversify short sentences and paragraphs. Add subheadings to help readers skim. Add FAQs
Although a higher word count is associated with higher rankings, quality is far more important than quantity. Don’t add hundreds of extra words if customers don’t need them. Robert Lehman, owner of Fair Wind Fasteners, emphasizes the importance of quality content. “Great content utilizes keywords and search terms in H1, H2, and H3 tags,” he says. “This allows Google and other search engines to know the content of the page and confirm the website as a reliable source for that content, boosting the rankings across the site.” Fix duplicate content
It should
All content on your website should be original and written specifically for your site.
Duplicate content refers to similar content across two different web pages. This makes it difficult for search engines to determine which of the two pages should be ranked.
If you own an online business, for example, do not use product descriptions from manufacturers. Writing your own descriptions not only reduces duplicate content but also gives you a better chance to sell the features and benefits of your products.
Use a canonical URL if you cannot avoid duplicate content on dynamic pages. This will let Google know which page it should prioritize. Do this by adding a link rel=”canonical” to the head of any page with duplicate content.
Read this help guide to request that search engines do not follow a specific page. Create specialized landing pages.
Instead of directing customers to the homepage and encouraging them to search for the information they are looking for, a landing page is a single URL that covers
Source: http://shopify.com/blog/seo-checklist-online-store
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