Shopify SEO - How to optimize your online store for organic rankings

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In e-commerce, organic growth has a significant impact on the success of your online store, regardless of your store system. SEO constantly attracts new customers to your brand. A portion of your turnover should therefore always be reinvested in search engine optimization. Even stores that rely on Shopify as their CMS cannot avoid SEO. But how does Shopify SEO differ from other systems? I'll show you the small but subtle differences in this article, while also explaining the basics of Shopify SEO. So by the end of this article, you'll know:

• - What are the special features of Shopify SEO?
  
• - What are the necessary steps for successful Shopify SEO
  
• - What to look out for in the individual steps
  
• - Valuable tips from the field

How Shopify SEO differs from "normal" search engine optimization

Shopify SEO is basically no different from other platforms, because the basic idea is always the same. You want to position your products, services or information in the top positions in the SERPs (search engine results pages) by offering real added value. You achieve this by offering searchers exactly what they are looking for. So you do SEO for people and not for search engines.

What makes SEO for Shopify special are the restrictions that Shopify brings with it. Nevertheless, a reasonable SEO setup can be achieved with a Shopify store. Many beginners even benefit from Shopify's default settings, as the Canadians once again focus on user-friendliness.

The SEO advantages of Shopify

The good news is that Shopify is already optimized for search engines in advance. Therefore, fewer adjustments need to be made here than with a WooCommerce store, for example. Above all, Shopify is already relatively sophisticated technically, which makes a sophisticated SEO strategy even more relevant.

As a general rule: concentrate on the 20% that ensure an 80% outcome, so you can keep an overview, reduce costs and see initial successes more quickly. So let's take a closer look at this 20%.

Shopify SEO Setup - before you start

Before we get started, I recommend that you first take a few steps to supplement the basic Shopify framework. Then it's time to get down to business.

Tracking & Monitoring

As with all online marketing measures, effective tracking and monitoring of optimizations is the be-all and end-all. Without figures, data and facts, you'll be in the dark and won't be able to adjust your strategy properly.

This makes it all the more alarming to realize time and again that very few companies have a correctly set up tracking system. If you are not sure whether your tracking is working properly, you are welcome to contact us and we will check your setup.

Although Shopify already offers internal tracking, this option is not sufficient and I recommend that you only use the data to check the other tracking tools.

Connect Google Search Console with Shopify

The GSC is the most essential tool when it comes to search engine optimization. It provides you with the most important data for SEO directly from Google, completely free of charge.

In the Google Search Console you will find:

• - Keywords for which you will be found
  
• - Clicks, impressions, CTR (click-through rate) and position of each keyword
  
• - Indexed pages of your website
  
• - Indexing problems of your website

It is therefore essential that you create a domain property for your Shopify store in the GSC. Follow the instructions from Google.

You should then submit your sitemap. The sitemap tells Google all the relevant pages of your Shopify store, so you make sure that no pages are overlooked, every submitted URL is crawled by Google. With Shopify, the sitemap is created and updated automatically, so apart from connecting it, you don't have to do anything else.

You can access the sitemap by appending the slug "sitemap.xml" to your domain.

Example: shopify-example-shop.com/sitemap.xml

You can submit the URL in the Search Console in the left menu under Indexing -> Sitemaps.

Now Google should find all pages of your Shopify store and you can keep an eye on your KPIs with the GSC. You can also see if the indexing of some pages fails and the causes.

Other tools for Shopify SEO - My recommendations

With the GSC you can already cover a large part of the monitoring, you should complete a tracking setup with a powerful SEO tool such as Ahrefs, Sistrix or Semrush.

I use Sistrix and Ahrefs on a daily basis and I can recommend both tools without reservation. I have not yet been able to test the competitor Semrush. Each tool has its own focus and therefore has advantages and disadvantages. If you want to cover as much as possible with one tool, I would go for Sistrix.

Interesting features are:

• - On-Page SEO Audit
  
• - Keyword Research
  
• - Backlink analysis
  
• - Keywords of the competition
  
• - Keyword tracking (ranking changes)

Google Analytics

Google Analytics allows you to collect and analyze even more in-depth data. To do this, you need to connect Google Analytics correctly to your Shopify store. But be careful, there are some legal restrictions here.

In my experience, many store operators reach their limits here, so my recommendation is to bring in an expert who can guarantee a 100% correct setup.

Shopify SEO strategy

Now that the basic framework is in place, we can get down to planning. If you set up a sensible strategy and implement it professionally, you will achieve your goals. The platform doesn't matter. The important thing is to make the strategy customer-oriented, which is why you should create a customer journey in addition to the keyword research.

Keyword research for your Shopify store

Many companies make the mistake of implementing marketing measures without comprehensive keyword research. Unfortunately, this is not very efficient and can often even cause permanent damage.

In e-commerce, the focus is on the products, but even the name of the products can be an advantage or disadvantage in search engine optimization. 

That's why I recommend keyword research at the earliest possible stage. First, you should answer a few questions for yourself.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• - What is part of my niche?
  
• - How can the niche be divided up even more finely?
  
• - What are people who need my product looking for?
  
• - What works for the competition?
  
• - What can I do better than the competition?
  
• - What do customers say? (use your experience with customers)

Then use the keyword research tool of your choice. Try to start with the product first. Which keywords are directly related to the products you serve? Try to be as specific as possible. Then enrich the list with broader terms that have a higher search volume.

A mixture of longtail keywords and shorthead keywords is crucial for filling the customer journey created in the next step with relevant search terms.

Customer Journey

Next, you want to combine the newly acquired data with your customer experience and their touchpoints to create a comprehensive customer journey. However, this goes beyond the topic of Shopify SEO, which is why a separate article will be published shortly. 

The important thing is that you should now have a comprehensive collection of keywords available for each phase.

Shopify Onpage SEO

Onpage SEO is about finding the sweet spot between effort and benefit. First and foremost, we still want to create content that helps users. Nevertheless, our basic structure must fit. The good news: Shopify is already fundamentally SEO optimized, so you generally don't have to deal with any major technical SEO problems.

Ideally, an experienced expert should prepare an SEO audit for you, as the problems can sometimes vary considerably. Only experts with sufficient experience can really guarantee the maximum degree of optimization. However, there are a number of general measures that can be implemented with less attention to detail.

So let's talk about the measures with the greatest leverage and look at the points step by step. The individual aspects are interlinked. This means that if even one aspect of your Shopify store is underperforming, your visibility will suffer.

Conversely, by eliminating your deficits, you can usually already achieve a large increase in visibility.

Ensure the optimal user experience (UX)

What does UX have to do with SEO? At first glance, not much, which is why this point is often neglected. However, a good user experience is extremely important, especially in e-commerce.

And it is also an important factor for search engine optimization. This is because Google evaluates your store based on user signals and decides whether your site "deserves" the traffic.

Google looks at the following metrics for this:

• - Bounce rate: Do visitors leave your website after a short time?
  
• - Time on site: How long do users stay with you?
  
• - Pages per session: Can users find their way around your store?

However, this data is not only important for search engine optimization, but is just as crucial for the conversion of your store. Only those who satisfy visitors on their site can hold their own on the market in the long term.

Loading times & Core Web Vitals with Shopify

Following on from the UX, loading times are also an important point for Shopify SEO. Nobody has the patience to wait a long time for the page to load, and it often even gives the impression that the store is not working properly. You should avoid this at all costs, otherwise your bounce rate will automatically skyrocket. 

You can test your pagespeed here https://tools.pingdom.com/

As a guideline: the faster, the better! Fortunately, Shopify stores are usually quite well positioned when it comes to loading times.

In addition to the loading time, you should always keep an eye on your Core Web Vitals. These are key figures that Google has defined as KPIs for UX. This means you can use the Core Web Vitals as quantitative benchmarks to see how you are performing in terms of loading times.

The importance of Core Web Vitals:

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): measures how long it takes for the largest visible content element to be fully loaded.

Interaction to Next Paint (INP): measures the responsiveness of a website to user interactions.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): evaluates visual stability and measures the sum of all unexpected layout shifts.

First Contentful Paint (FCP): measures how long it takes for the first visible content element to load.

First Input Delay (FID): measures the delay between the first user interaction and the response of the website.

Time to First Byte (TTFB): measures the time it takes for the browser to receive the first byte of the response from the server.

You can test the Core Web Vitals here: https://pagespeed.web.dev/?hl=DE

After the test, specific recommendations are also suggested to improve the user experience.

Title tags and meta description

The classic among on-page SEO optimizations. The meta data is often not optimized and either too long, too short or even without a keyword. But it's not just the length and the keyword that are decisive.

The title tag is your biggest argument to attract users to visit your site. Accordingly, you should not just carelessly place the keyword + a generic phrase here.

Real tact is required here. Place the keyword at the beginning of the title if possible, then try to communicate your USP (Unique Selling Point). But also consider the potential customer's point of view, what do they expect according to your statement and can your Shopify store fulfill these expectations?

With this approach, your CTR should increase, if it still needs improvement, you should find out your formula for success through trial and error and A/B testing. The situation is similar with the meta description.

With the SERP Snippet Generator you can check the length of your snippets and see how they are displayed in the search results.

Structured data

Also important for the presentation in the SERPs. Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and for classifying the page content. It helps search engines to better understand the content of your website and display more relevant results for users. For Shopify stores, this means that your products and content can be displayed more accurately and engagingly in search results, which can greatly influence CTR.

Structured data gives you the opportunity to obtain so-called rich snippets:

You can either add the data using SEO plugins for Shopify or in the HTML editor. On schema.org you can get the relevant code.

For your Shopify store, I recommend that you store the following data:

• - Ratings (must-have)
• - Brand
• - Product image (must-have)
• - GTIN
• - Material
• - Category

With the validator from schema.org, you can then check whether the implementation worked. If your setup was faulty, the problems will be displayed and you can fix them.

Headings for Shopify SEO

This point is a matter close to my heart, because almost no store has a correct heading structure. Yet it is so simple and at the same time so efficient.

Überschriften im Web werden mit den HTML Tags <H1> bis <H6> gekennzeichnet. Sie unterliegen einer Hierarchie. Jede Seite deines Shops benötigt immer genau eine <H1> sie ist die Hauptüberschrift und hat dementsprechend viel Relevanz. Für ein ideales SEO Setup startet die H1-Überschrift immer mit dem Hauptkeyword.

Alle weiteren Überschriften werden mit <H2> bis <H6> gekennzeichnet und können beliebig oft vorkommen. Wichtig dabei ist, dass nach einer <H2> entweder eine weitere <H2> kommt oder eine <H3>. Du darfst die Hierarchie nicht überspringen.

<H2> Stellen die Hauptthemen dar, je tiefer du in die entsprechenden Themen eindringst, desto größer wird die Zahl deiner Überschrift. <H1> bis <H3> sind die am häufigsten verwendeten HTML Tags, strebe hier eine Keyword dichte von 75% an, um zu signalisieren, worum es auf der Seite geht.

Internal links and menu navigation

Another extremely important point that combines UX with search engine optimization. A clearly structured menu from which all relevant pages of your website can be reached intuitively is extremely important for users.

At the same time, internal links distribute the so-called linkjuice of your website. This allows you to control which pages are more relevant. So you want to link your most important pages most frequently.

The easiest way to do this is through the menu and the footer of your Shopify page. You should also link within your individual subject areas.

Backlinks for your Shopify store

Alongside technical SEO and content marketing, backlinks are one of the basic pillars of SEO, but are often neglected. This is because it is extremely difficult to get good backlinks, especially for online stores.

Due to the difficulty of link building, many rely on paid backlinks. Unfortunately, this approach is expensive and even violates Google guidelines.

The better option is to plan the budget and work through the low hanging fruits. Let's go through the steps, from easy to complex.

#1 List in directories: Online directories such as Yellow Pages act as a business directory and provide easy to get backlinks. These are not particularly helpful, but are part of organic growth. 

#2 Links from partners and suppliers: Due to the cooperation, backlinks are a logical consequence and therefore easier to obtain.

#3 Existing mentions: If brand awareness is already somewhat advanced, you will always be able to find mentions on other websites. Unfortunately, these are not always linked. A friendly email can often lead to a subsequent link.

#4 Enter into cooperations: Backlinks can also be collected through cooperations.

#5 Guest posts: With a guest post, you write an article for an external website and receive a backlink in return. 

#6 PR marketing: Can be done in-house or by an agency. The goal is brand awareness and backlinks through mentions in well-known magazines.

You can follow the individual steps and build up an organic link profile. Of course, off-page SEO takes time and resources. Nevertheless, it should be part of your SEO strategy.

Content marketing for your Shopify store

After you've taken care of on-page SEO and your link profile is growing organically, it's time to develop your content strategy.

Content strategy

To do this, you need your keyword list and the previously created customer journey. First, you should define 3-5 topic areas and cluster possible posts into these areas.

The clusters are important because you want to become a reliable source in Google in these areas. To achieve this, it is important to define these areas in a meaningful way. This is how you are most likely to be recognized as an authority on these topics.

Once you have clustered your topics, you can define the so-called pillar articles. These should reflect the main topics and provide a general overview of the topic. Each of the 3-5 pillar articles is followed by several sub-articles, which can then have further sub-articles if the topic allows.

This structure ensures optimal linking between the articles. The pillar articles link to all sub-articles in the cluster and vice versa. This creates a content tree over time.

Make sure you provide enough content for every possible touchpoint of potential customers. Prioritize very specific keywords that perfectly match your products. Try to plan content that does not yet exist but is relevant and offers people help.

Finally, you need to determine the frequency at which you want to publish new articles. Two or more articles per week are ideal, but you can also achieve success with one article per month. It is important that new content is created regularly. So find a frequency that you can stick to.

Content creation for Shopify SEO

Next comes the hard work. Once your Shopify content strategy is in place, it's time to hit the keyboard! Stick to SEO best practices when writing, but above all, give your readers what they want. Only if readers are satisfied with your text will your article have a chance of securing a good position in the long term. 

Create Shopify SEO content with the help of AI tools

I would also like to briefly discuss AI tools here, as artificial intelligence is already an integral part of many processes and is here to stay.

AI has also become an integral part of my workflows. However, I only use it as support for research, structuring or brainstorming. Completely AI-generated content is not yet good enough to be a real alternative.

The new secret weapon for SEO: YouTube

Did you know that YouTube is already the second largest search engine? As future AI features such as Google Bard could reduce the visibility of companies in Google's search results pages, it is even more important in SEO to deliver content that is not easily replicable.

YouTube videos represent an excellent opportunity here. As both Google and YouTube are owned by Alphabet, there are wonderful synergies here. For example, searchers can also find YouTube videos in Google Search. At the same time, an already good blog post is made even better by a thematically appropriate YouTube video. In addition, professional YouTube content helps enormously with brand loyalty.

It therefore makes sense to combine your own SEO strategy with YouTube content and be prepared for the latest marketing developments as early as possible.

Synergy effects in Shopify marketing

Shopify SEO is of course just one of many Shopify Marketing measures. For a comprehensive marketing strategy, all marketing channels should be coordinated with each other. This can create synergy effects that ensure greater growth. For SEO, it is particularly relevant to attract many users to the site, who then send positive signals to Google.

Marketing channels that harmonize particularly well with Shopify SEO:

• - Pay-per-click marketing
• - E-mail marketing
• - Pinterest
• - Youtube

These Chanels can be used to direct targeted traffic to new pages, such as Shopify landing pagesnew products or your Shopify blog.

Conclusion: SEO for Shopify more visibility through relevant rankings

Search engines are a central component of e-commerce, making SEO significantly relevant for every online store. Identifying important keywords and generating sales from traffic through a professional customer journey is the art that SEO agencies have dedicated themselves to. But SEO success can also be achieved in-house. It is important that there is an expert who has an overview and can provide support if necessary. 

Shopify SEO FAQ