Every Shopify owner wants their store to successful. One of the major keys to success with owning a Shopify store is having good strategy for gaining traffic and converting shoppers into customers. In this article, I’ll cover the basics on how you can get started towards developing high quality traffic with our SEO Tips for Your Shopify Store.
The acronym SEO stands for search engine optimization which describes the methods taken to improve a website’s presence on search results.
The ultimate goal is to have a website that people know and speak of such as Amazon and Netflix. But not everyone can achieve the success of a huge corporation, and that’s why it’s super important to start showing up in search results so that your business can become known over time.
There is a big difference between showing up the first page of search results and showing up on the second page.
I’m going to give you tips that don’t require any coding knowledge.
The best resource you have is time, and research. By looking up topics you don’t quite understand, you can be sure to learn the necessary skills it takes to own and run a thriving online store.
Luckily for you, there are steps you can take in order to achieve this success and we’ll describe them in full detail below.
SEO for Your Shopify Store – 5 Great Tips that Work!
Creating a sitemap (aka: product index) helps customers navigate around your shop and increases SEO
1. Generate a SEO friendly HTML Sitemap for your Shopify store
Shopify automatically generates an XML file for your store, but they don’t generate an HTML sitemap for your store. An XML file is not human-readable and is meant just for search engines. It’s important to add an HTML sitemap to your store which provides a product index for your customers to conveniently browse and click on items they want to buy.
There are some additional perks to having a sitemap on your Shopify store. They are great for increasing your SEO because they list each and every blog article on your site.
Each article can then be crawled and indexed by Google.
Sitemap Builder by Adolab instantly generates an HTML sitemap for your Shopify store. You can easily customize your sitemap with one-click to suite your needs.
A sitemap is great for listing all of your products in one spot with clickable links.
Sitemap Builder also provides you with a nifty guide to help you submit your site to Google for indexing. If you’re looking to improve your overall site ranking, make sure to install Sitemap Builder today to get started with a sitemap.
PRO TIP: Install the Shopify app Sitemap Builder which instantly creates a custom HTML sitemap for your website
Adding JSON-LD to your Shopify store can increase traffic to your site
2. Gain more clicks with JSON-ld & Structured Data
JSON-ld is markup code formatting in a particular way dictated by Schema.org that helps search engines understand what your website is all about.
This code are a part of structured data. Having structured data allows search engines to crawl and index your site which is very important for search engine optimization.
Structured data enables search engines, such as Google, to create rich snippets for your product descriptions. Rich snippets help your product descriptions stand out in search results because they contain colorful star ratings and extra details that convince potential buyers to click on your website.
Having structured data on your Shopify store can lead to a higher click-through rate.
When a person looks up a product such as “dog outfit,” they might see a dozen or so results on the first page of Google. Which result will the person click depends on the search result that stands out the most. A rich snippet will most likely catch their attention even if it’s not the first result. Structured data can have a significant impact on your site’s overall ranking.
PRO TIP: Install the Shopify app Get Clicked! SEO which instantly creates structured data for your entire site.
Show your Shopify store some TLC! Make sure all of your pages are optimized for SEO
3. Optimize your Pages
Do you want your website to be optimized for search engine optimization? Of course you do. That means better ranking and possibly showing up more in search results, every merchants dream. In order to have the most effective webpages optimized for SEO, you’ll need to double check your website to see if they are following these best practices.
HTML formatting is important and the placement of tags is crucial.
You can only use the H1 tag once, and only once! This is a must follow rule. If it’s ignored, it can really mess up your SEO score.
How long are your titles? Make sure they don’t exceed 70 characters or they’ll be cut off in search results.
Keep your titles understandable to humans, not robots. Although everyone is tempted to keyword stuff their titles, make sure you don’t fall for this gimmick. There is an uptrend in Google Voice Search, which means that the more plain English you are with the titles, the better. A human-readable format always wins.
Getting backlinks aren’t the easiest thing in the world, but they’re super important to build up over time
4. Backlinks are Important
A backlink is a link on another website that leads back to your website. Backlinks are very important for your Shopify store because they help you rank higher on search engines.
When Google sees a lot of links leading back to your website, it will understand that you are an authority on that topic or niche.
Just make sure that your backlinks are legitimate and can be found on reputable websites.
There are a couple ways to get a backlink for your Shopify store:
Writing a review for a Shopify app that you’ve installed can actually help increase your SEO. By leaving a review, you’ll have created a valuable link that leads back to your site from the Shopify app store. This backlink helps to increase your site’s SEO because Google tracks how many inbound links are going back to your website.
Also, you can contact online blogs and magazines to see if they will write about your store. You can also write a guest blog article on another site so that they can give you a link back to your store.
You can create a backlink strategy by looking at what your competitors are doing. Many companies have an “As seen on” section of their website which can help you get started on who to contact.
Pay close attention to which press agencies have covered your competitors story.
You can use a helpful site such as Open Link Profiler to track your backlink progress and spy on other similar sites.
Want to be known? Get yourself all over social media and make your brand stand out with fresh content
5. Get on Social Media
There is no better way to be found then on social media. If you want your company to be known, you need to make sure people can find you easily online.
The best thing about social media marketing is that it is absolutely free. Start by creating a Facebook page for your company which can be a great place for your customers to see the announcements and giveaways.
Having social media accounts is not only a great way to increase your exposure, but it’s an awesome way to offer your customers a place to ask a question or give their feedback.
Twitter is the perfect platform for sharing quick updates such as new products or contests. It’s also a great resource for getting quick feedback from your customers who are more likely to send you a tweet than an email.
Having a variety of social media accounts can also help increase your SEO.
Google counts social presence as one their many factors in ranking sites because it means that your company has a reputable reputation.
Make sure to attract new followers and likes by posting good content that keeps your audience engaged and coming back for more!
Patience is the key to developing great SEO on your Shopify store. Don’t give up!
Get more people to your site & Sell more products!
You’re now well on your way to becoming an SEO guru! Increasing your SEO knowledge takes time, patience, and a lot of hard work. Optimizing SEO for Your Shopify Store is very important for growing site traffic which can drive sales. Try implementing these SEO best practices as soon as possible.
Stephen R. Covey, the author of the famous book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People coined a term called interdependence.
Basically, it means the sharing of skills between people.
By applying your skills in conjunction with another person’s strong suits, you can create a company that is bigger than yourself.
Conclusion
A successful business person is aware of their own limitations, which can help them in the long run. They know how to utilize another person’s skills to their advantage.
Remember, that you don’t have to do it all by yourself. Make sure to take a look at the many apps available on the Shopify app store and explore the many ways you can help your store grow.
Do you have other tips for Shopify merchants? Leave a comment below with your thoughts!
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