If you are looking to improve your eCommerce store, then looking at your Shopify SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is key to making sure the experience is pleasurable for your users, it is relevant and fast!
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Can you do SEO on Shopify?
Short answer is Yes, however, Shopify SEO is not a button you can press and it is sorted across your website.
SEO involves several areas that cross-over, including design and colour, user experience and accessibility, content and media, and the code.
Making sure your website meets the four key pillars of Google Core Web Vitals is a great way to benchmark your website currently, and see suggestions on where to improve.
It’s a great way to identify issues that need addressing straight away, such as security vulnerabilities (out of date scripts for example), slow-loading pages (often due to large images or videos) and colour contrast which can be easily fixed and have a large impact on Web Accessibility.
Also, checking your Google Analytics and Search Console to establish where users are landing and where they are dropping off, such as a particular product page.
Does Shopify have built-in SEO?
Shopify allows you to edit any Page, Post or Product search engine Title and Description for each product within your store.
Clicking the blue link, “Edit website SEO” will allow you to change the Title, Description and URL (handle) for that piece of content.
Now this isn’t exactly what they’ll see, it’s an approximation – search engines, like Google, will always show you what they think is best for the user.
So as long as you aren’t too spammy, you can recommend a title and a description, which will show up in the SERPs.
Site-wide SEO
The most shared page of any website is the home page and when someone shares your home page, to make sure that the right title and meta description are shared and what you specify for your Shopify SEO, can often display when shared on social networks.
In your admin, go to Online Store and then Preferences and you can see the SEO title and meta description at the top.
You might be tempted to just type in the name of your store but this is a good opportunity to tell people more about who you are and what you sell.
Instead of just typing “blue seas surfboards” which is pretty generic, you could type “surfboards, surfboard accessories and everything you need for a fun outing”.
How to get good SEO on Shopify
Content is still king and if you want to rank well in Google you have to play by their rules. Needless to say, if you break down the tasks, it can make your Shopify SEO less overwhelming.
See our Shopify SEO Checklist below as a starting point!
Fundamentally, you could breakdown this into three key areas;
On-Page SEO
Creating site content and optimising it for target keywords and related terms, to increase relevance and rankings.
Technical SEO
The ‘under-the-hood’ aspects of your site that can affect crawling, indexation, user experience (UX) and ultimately rankings.
Off-Page SEO
Acquiring and managing backlinks from authoritative relevant sources to boost site authority and topical relevance.
How much of this you do yourself, relying on Apps or external website tools, or outsource to a Developer, Shopify Expert or Agency, will entirely depend on your time as a resource as well as cost.
Shopify have a great, in-depth guide on their blog: A Guide To Generating Store Traffic
Shopify SEO Apps
Beyond what Shopify provides, using an App can greatly expand on what is available on the platform, provided by a third-party developer.
Before you install any Apps, it is worth bearing in mind that, like other platforms, you the more you add, the more unwieldy things become, and inevitably things can start to slow your website down.
Curating what you install and looking at criteria such as ratings or reviews, compatibility and Highlights (Shopify provides this in the sidebar, when viewing a single App) can help narrow down your search.
Personally we love to use Yoast – we use the WordPress version on our own website and find it has so much help and context to keep us on track for SEO.
However you might find the following Apps useful;
- Plug In SEO – Free plan available. 4.7 Rating, 2,571 Reviews
- SEO Manager – 7-day free trial. 4.7 Rating, 1,728 Reviews
- SEO, Image optimizer & Speed – Free plan available. 5 Rating, 1,205 Reviews
- SEO King – Free plan available. 4.7 Rating, 979 Reviews
- SEOAnt ‑ SEO & Image Optimizer – Free plan available. 4.9 Rating, 710 Reviews
Some great Apps for managing and optimising images – all which come with a FREE plan available include:
Ultimately, you might have to try a few to see what is a good fit for you and your team and the specific functionality you are looking for, for your needs.
Shopify SEO Checklist
We’ve collated a handy checklist for you to use, to see how your current website is performing and what tasks you may need to address.
SEO Basics
- Set up Google Search Console
- Set up Bing Webmaster Tools
- Set up Google Analytics
- Install an SEO app
- Submit your sitemap to Google
Keyword Research
- Find a primary keyword
- Assess search intent
- Assess your chances of ranking
- Research what people want to know
- Great tools for this include; Ahrefs, SERanking, Semrush and Google Keyword Planner.
Content
- Solve the reader’s problem
- Write a winning intro
- Use sub-headings to create hierarchy
- Break large text up with images
- Use short sentences and paragraphs
- Add a Table Of Contents (TOC) to long articles
On-page SEO
- Use short, descriptive URLs
- Write a compelling title tag
- Write a compelling meta description
- Link to relevant resources
- Optimise your images
- Add internal links
Link Building
- Check out your competitors
- Reclaim lost links – contact site owners
- Pursue unlinked mentions
- Publish guest posts
- Find people linking to inferior content
- Tell more people about your content (Digital Marketing)
Technical SEO
- Plan your website structure
- Make sure your website is crawlable and indexable
- Make sure you’re using HTTPS
- Make sure your website is accessible at one domain
- Make sure your website loads fast (above 80 score)
- Make sure your site is mobile-friendly
- Use image compression
- Fix broken pages (404s)
- Fix duplicate content issues
Are you looking for Shopify SEO optimisation, edits or store changes?
We’ve been working with Shopify for some years, from small independent shops to large complicated stores with lots of products, functionality and goals.
You can see more of our projects in our Shopify work.
“I want to optimise my site”
Ensuring your website is performing well is key to the best user experience. Benchmarking your current site using tools such as PageSpeed Insights, Gtmetrix, Pingdom or Google Lighthouse, is a great start.
We can perform audits on n your website to find out where issues lie, and prioritise what needs to be done to better your scores, improve the user journey and ultimately increase sales.
“I need SEO help with lots of things”
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is a broad subject and can cover many areas including Technical SEO, data analytics and reporting, creative content and outreach, paid search and social.
As each area requires it’s own specialisms and expertise, we focus on Technical SEO, which simply put, is the code part of SEO. Tangible elements we can change that meet Google’s criteria.
Google introduced a way of scoring website into it’s algorithm in Autumn 2022, which looks at speed/performance, web accessibility, basic security and fundamental SEO.
If you find you are scoring low, this is something we can help you with.
“help me with theme coding please”
When it comes to code and Shopify Themes we can certainly help at Blueocto. All our Themes are built from scratch for our clients.
We also help shop owners with existing websites, helping them to tweak and refine or fix issues that are affecting the user experience or aid in Digital Marketing initiatives.
“I want to have a better looking, better performing website.”
Creating unique websites that are bespoke to your business needs and a pleasant experience for your customers is our goal.
At Blueocto we strive to make Shopify websites to be clean, simple, easy to use and fast on mobile as well as desktop.
It would be great to discuss in more depth, what your ideal website would look like and how we can help you achieve that.
Caroline Hagan
Caroline brings over 15 years as a Designer and Developer; featured in .NET magazine, the only woman in the UK accredited for Google Mobile Sites. A business mentor with Enterprise Nation, STEM Ambassador and Google Women Techmaker Ambassador Previous client projects include Blackberry, FIAT, Clark Shoes and Sky.
