Effective SEO, or Search Engine Optimization can be a difficult thing to achieve, especially with Google’s ever-changing algorithm.
In order to maximize your ecommerce business’ organic traffic, growth, and sales, an effective SEO strategy is vital. Here are some tips you can use for effective SEO for your Shopify store to get you ranked higher on Google searches and draw more traffic.
CHOOSING THE RIGHT URL DOMAIN NAME
The URL domain name is the very first piece of your site that both customers and search engines will see, often times before they even decide to visit your site. While it won’t single-handedly make-or-break your site, having a good domain name acts as a good opportunity to get your foot in the door. It would be wise then, before you select a domain name, to take a few things into consideration.
Firstly, picking a solidly important keyword to stick in there will do wonders for your ranking. As mentioned above, the search engine sees the URL first, and sticking a keyword in there will immediately let it know what you’re all about. And don’t forget to have your brand name in there too; those two together can go a long way in ensuring both consumers and search engines remember and rank you highly, respectively.
The second thing to remember is to keep your domain name short and sweet. This makes it more simple and easy for not only search engines, but also consumers to remember. And avoid using symbols like hyphens, at signs, or really anything not a letter or number, as they generally just muck things up.
The last piece of your URL to keep in mind is that people generally trust .com sites more than others, so try to stick with using that.
YOUR SHOPIFY THEME
Your Shopify theme is an important area when it comes to proper and effective SEO. Picking the most eye-catching or flashy theme is not always the wisest move as typically those take longer to load, and a good fast pagespeed is an essential part of good SEO. Not to mention too, that those themes don’t lend themselves to being too mobile friendly either, which can definitely do some damage to your traffic and turn people away in frustration.
So picking a good theme is clearly an essential part of successful and effective SEO, with the key, then, being to pick a theme that effectively blends style and speed to create a satisfying user experience, with mobile responsiveness being a good bonus to look out for.
ON-PAGE SEO: KEYWORDS, TITLES, IMAGES, & CONTENT
On-page SEO in Shopify sounds a lot more intimidating than it actually is.
In general, once you get some practice and understanding with on-page SEO, the techniques and principles can apply in many other areas outside of Shopify.
KEYWORDS
Keywords are like the seasoning of your website. They’re very important, but should be used to the proper degree for best results. To figure out what keywords are best, the best thing to do to start is figure out your target audience and get in their heads as far as what they’ll be looking for and what they’ll want out of your site. Then use a tool like Google Ads' keyword finder to figure out some keywords with high traffic and low competition to work with.
Long-tail keywords are another important thing to keep in mind. Rather than a single word, long-tail keywords are more focused phrases that people search for, and if encorporated properly, can bring some good traffic to your site.
TITLES
Optimizing your titles is another important step, as (again), it’s one of the first things that consumers and search engines see and judge. The key to a successful title is to balance informative and descriptive with short and concise: say as much as you can in as few words as you can. That also applies to the optimization of the meta description that sits just beneath the title.
IMAGES
Images are the next thing you’ll need to optimize.
If not optimized, then they will slow your website on all fronts and significantly reduce its mobile-friendliness. One of the easiest ways to optimize your images is to use TinyJPG.com: you simply drag and drop the desired image into the box, and it compresses it into a much more manageable size while still looking fantastic. You can have your cake and eat it too!
CONTENT
Content is the last thing you can add that can really draw people to your site and act towards good SEO.
This can be in the form of an informative and relevant blog dealing with the good or service you offer. This lets both consumers and search engines know that you’re knowledgeable on the topic you’re dealing with, resulting in (once again) better traffic and a higher ranking.
IN CONCLUSION
Good SEO on Shopify is relatively easy to achieve compared to some of the other platforms out there. While podium placement is in no way guaranteed, optimizing your product listings according to the above guidelines will allow Google to better utilize them to steer customers towards your website, resulting in increased traffic and sales.
If this is all a little overwhelming for you, don’t worry: we understand.
We can work with you to help figure out just what your business needs and work to maximize the effectiveness of your listings. Contact us to see exactly how we can help you!
