12 Shopify SEO Tips for Optimizing Your Store and Ranking #1

Do you want to set your Shopify store up for lasting success? Improving your search engine rankings will help you reach more customers online. In addition to generating brand awareness, it can also help you boost traffic and sales.

Your ROI will rise, setting your Shopify store up for lasting growth.

Nearly 68% of online activities start on search engines like Google and Bing. About 75% of consumers never look at the second page, though. Meanwhile, about 51% of the traffic you generate starts with a search for your products.

With search engine optimization (SEO), you can improve your search engine rankings. Ranking higher will position your website ahead of the competition. With Shopify SEO, you can expand your reach online.

Not sure where to start? Here are the 12 Shopify optimization tips you need for success.

Learning how to optimize your Shopify website could help you generate more sales than ever before. Get started with this Shopify SEO checklist today!

1. Research Your Customers

Before rushing to optimize your Shopify store, it’s important to gather research. You don’t want to risk making assumptions while optimizing your site.

Start by learning as much as you can about your target audience. After all, they’re the ones you’re optimizing your site for! It’s important to make sure your site is optimized based on their searches and behaviors.

After all, your products likely don’t suit every consumer. If you’re focused on a niche, you can use Shopify SEO to appeal to that group.

First, determine who your customers are and what they care about. Try to segment your customers into distinct buyer personas. For example, perhaps you sell clothes for women, rather than men.

Consider other demographics and psychographics when defining your target audience, such as:

Age
Location
Household income
Marital status
Buying behaviors
Interests
Language
Education
Hobbies
Pain points

Perhaps you’re selling upscale products and want to focus on consumers who generate a higher household income. Maybe you want to focus on customers who live in a warmer client.

Either way, pinpointing your target audience is crucial to developing a strong content and SEO strategy. Understanding who your customers are will help you personalize your content.

Personalization and User Intent

Personalization could set your entire Shopify optimization strategy up for success.

In fact, generic content is now considered a turn-off. Nearly three-fourths of online consumers get annoyed when website content doesn’t match their interests. Another 52% will switch brands if you’re not personalizing communications.

Personalization could help you generate more sales. In fact, 90% of marketers experience a measurable lift in business results by personalizing. You could improve the ROI on your marketing spend by eight times.

You might even lift sales by 10% or more.

Personalization will also help you appeal to the consumer’s search intent.

Google’s machine learning abilities allow it to better understand what consumers are looking for online. If your content doesn’t match their search intent, your content might not appear in a search.

For example, perhaps the consumer is looking for a tutorial before using your product. Maybe they’re comparison shopping and want to read about pros and cons. Sometimes, search intent is navigational rather than transactional or informational.

Try to understand the pain points your customers are experiencing. Then, you can create content that provides a solution. You could have an easier time appealing to their search intent as a result.

As you use the rest of these Shopify SEO tips, make sure to keep your target audience in mind.

2. Gather Keyword Research

Once you determine exactly who your customers are, you can start gathering keyword research. You’ll use target keywords to optimize your Shopify website. When someone searches for those keywords, your website could appear as a result.

You can use a combination of different tools to gather keyword research, including:

SEMRush
Ahrefs
Google Trends
Keyword Planner
Answer the Public

Otherwise, consider working with a digital marketing agency that has experience with Shopify optimization. They can help by gathering a list of target keywords that suit your target audience.

As you gather keywords for your Shopify optimization strategy, look for longtail keywords.

Longtail keywords are made up of four or more words. These keywords are more precise. Precision is key to appealing to the user’s search intent.

For example, you could waste time targeting the word “sweater.” Is the consumer looking for a how-to video to knit a sweater? Do they want to buy a wool sweater or a Christmas sweater?

Try to choose keywords that are specific to your industry or products.

Using Keywords in Your Posts

You’ll need to optimize each page and post on your Shopify website. When optimizing your content, it’s important to avoid keyword stuffing. Otherwise, Google might penalize your site, impacting your ability to reach customers.

If your Shopify store isn’t appearing on Google, learn how to fix it here.

Instead, place your keyword in key areas, including the:

URL
Page title
Opening and closing paragraphs
Body text
An H1 header
Image file name
Image alt text
Meta description

In addition to using a focus keyword, try sprinkling secondary keywords within the content, too. Secondary keywords can include synonyms or related terms.

Avoid placing the keyword into the post after creating your content. Otherwise, the keyword might not appear naturally within the text. Instead, write each post you create with a keyword in mind.

3. Improve the User Experience

Take the time to audit your Shopify website. The user experience (UX) on your site could impact your search engine rankings. Google prioritizes websites that offer a positive user experience.

When your website is easy to use, visitors will stick around and explore. Your dwell times will rise. A high clickthrough rate and dwell time can improve your search engine rankings.

If your Shopify store is difficult to navigate and use, visitors will leave without clicking around. Your bounce rate will rise. Google will take notice and drop your rankings as a result.

You can improve the UX on your website by running your Shopify site through Google’s tools, including:

PageSpeed Insights
Mobile-Friendly Test
Core Web Vitals

Start by making sure your pages load quickly. After all, no one wants to wait around for a page to load. If the page takes too long, the visitor will leave.

Next, make sure your site works on all devices. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, smartphone users will leave.

Google’s Core Web Vitals are a series of user-centric ranking factors.

Google’s tools can help you determine what changes to add to your Shopify SEO checklist. Otherwise, consider working with a web design and development agency. Their services can help you make updates to your site.

Only 1% of users say e-Commerce websites meet their expectations every time. About 53% of mobile users leave a website after three seconds.

About 75% won’t return if your site isn’t mobile-optimized. In fact, 60% won’t trust a business that’s not optimized for mobile. Meanwhile, 75% of people form an opinion about a company based on aesthetics.

About 70% will abandon shopping carts due to a bad experience. Another 88% won’t return to a site after a bad experience, either.

Your website’s user experience can impact your sales. Meanwhile, your search rankings will drop. Potential customers could struggle to find your Shopify store through a search as a result.

4. Optimize Product Pages

Once you’ve improved your website and have gathered your keyword research, it’s time to optimize your Shopify product pages.

Start optimizing pages that yield the most conversions, since they’re the most profitable. That can include your home page and main product collections. Optimize your top-seller product pages, too.

As you use these Shopify SEO tips, make sure to maintain consistency.

The SEO page title will appear in the first line of search results. The title tells searchers what the page is about. Try to maintain a consistent style.

For example, you might want to include your store name at the end of each title.

Make sure to include your target keyword in the SEO title, too. Choose target keywords that match the user’s search intent and the content.

5. Build Links

Link-building is an important component of an effective Shopify SEO strategy, too.

In fact, Google claims backlinks are one of its top three ranking factors. Over 66% of pages don’t have backlinks, though.

Backlinks are links that appear on someone else’s website that links consumers to your site.

Don’t confuse backlinks with internal or external links. Internal links appear on your site and link consumers to your other pages.

External links appear on your site as well, but they send consumers to other websites. You might consider links to research, studies, or content relevant to your products.

The more backlinks a page has, the more organic traffic it tends to generate through Google.

One of the easiest ways to generate backlinks is to create high-quality content other websites will want to link to. For example, you might create a wow-worthy product tutorial video.

Otherwise, consider working with an experienced SEO marketing agency. They’ll help you generate backlinks from high-domain authority sites. Generating backlinks will improve your rankings, helping you reach more customers.

6. Create Compelling Content

Once you’ve gathered your keyword research, start creating attention-grabbing, helpful posts for your target audience. Creating compelling content can help you rank for a range of keywords. You can keep appearing in front of prospective customers online.

Experiment with different forms of content. For example, you can create blog posts, infographics, polls, and quizzes. Consider creating more video content this year, too.

Don’t forget to have a target keyword in mind before you start writing.

7. Understand EAT

As you optimize your Shopify content, make sure each post demonstrates EAT.

EAT stands for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. Focusing on EAT can boost your credibility. Consumers might feel more inclined to trust your brand as a result.

Generating brand trust could help you generate more sales.

8. Check Out the Competition

If you need help improving your Shopify optimization strategy, look at what your competitors are doing. Which of their posts rank the highest on search engine result pages for the keywords you’re targeting?

Reviewing their content can help you learn from their successes and failures.

For example, what topics are they covering? What types of content are they creating? What helps their Shopify store stand out from others online?

Don’t copy your competitors. Instead, use their tactics to continue improving your own.

9. Prioritize Quality Over Quantity

As you use these Shopify SEO tips, you might feel inclined to churn out content. Don’t! Instead, focus on quality over quantity.

Provide tips and helpful advice consumers can’t find anywhere else. Help them recognize your unique value proposition, too. You’ll have an easier time standing apart from competitors.

Focusing on quality will also encourage consumers to keep returning to your Shopify store for the content they want. Here are a few more ways to drive more traffic to your store.

10. Optimize for Voice Search

If you want to rank at the top of a search engine results page, try to track the latest SEO trends. For example, voice search is gaining popularity. You can appeal to voice searches by focusing on longtail keywords posed as questions.

Answer the user’s question at the beginning of your post. Then, go into more detail within the following paragraphs.

Appealing to the latest SEO trends will help you rank ahead of competitors.

11. Gather Reviews

Your happy Shopify shoppers can boost your SEO rankings, too.

Take the time to gather customer reviews. Customer reviews can boost your credibility.

Consider creating a Google My Business (GMB) profile, too. You can ask consumers to post their reviews there, which can benefit your rankings.

12. Analyze and Optimize

Once you start using SEO for Shopify stores, review your results. Use analytics to determine which pages and posts generate the most traffic. Consider what search terms people use to find your content, too.

Then, continue improving your Shopify SEO strategy to expand your reach.