Last Updated on by Dan S
Originally Published May 4, 2021.
You’ve just set up your Shopify and are excited to get selling. The first orders might be starting to come in, but the next step is to start generating consistent traffic through Google. You want to rank your Shopify store on Google and get it to page one for keywords. This could be the difference between having to spend hundreds on advertising and nothing through organic search results.
Hopefully you have setup the above and this will start to propagate and rank your content on Google. The next aspect is getting it near the top so it is actually seen.
If you’ve just made a Shopify store, it won’t visible be on Google. To rank your Shopify store Google without having to wait for it to be crawled, you can follow some SEO best practices. However, before you do that, its strongly advise to register your website with Search Console and submit a sitemap.
After you’ve verified your store, you need to submit your Shopify store’s sitemap to Google. You’ll find the sitemap on the root directory of your store’s domain. It would look something like this:
johns-apparel.com/sitemap.xml.
For Shopify Basic plan, you’ll only get the sitemap for the primary domain of your store. However, if you have a higher plan, you’ll have a sitemap for additional domains too.
Keep in mind that Google won’t be able to read your store if it’s password protected. Disable the password when verifying your domain and getting it ranking on Google.
Verifying your site with Google
Here are the steps to verify your site with Google:
- Go to your Google Search Console account and click the three horizontal lines
- Click on Add Property and choose Select Property Type
- Then, choose the URL prefix and type the domain name, including the https://
- After clicking on Continue, click on Verify Ownership
- Choose HTML tag
- Highlight the HTML tag and copy it. Copy everything, including the symbols. It will look like the below but DO NOT copy the one below. Copy your one 🙂
<meta name=”google-site-verification” content=”this-will-be-a-long-string-of-characters” />
- In your Shopify admin, go to the Online store and to Themes
- Choose your theme and click on Actions to go to Edit Code
- Go to Layout and click on theme.liquid
- Look for the <head> tag and paste the text you copied earlier on a line below this tag
- Save the changes
- Go back to Google Search Console
- Click on Verify
Submit sitemap
After this, you have to submit your sitemap to Google.
- Go to Google Search Console and select Sitemaps
- Click on Add a new sitemap
- Type in your domain’s sitemap
- Click Submit
Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg. You can explore this in further detail on our full Shopify checklist and SEO ranking.
9 key ways to improve SEO for your Shopify store
Rising up the Google ranking can take time and your content must be good. Take a look at 9 key ways to improve your SEO for your Shopify store below and get results.
1) Unique content
You must create unique content. Google loves it when the content you create is your own. Within this content, you’ll need to ensure you are targeting relevant keywords that make sense for the topic you are writing about. You need to ensure you are optimizing your website for the applicable keywords that will help you appear for the right search terms and drive the right traffic to your site.
If you are unsure of the keywords you need to be using, you can conduct keyword research. SEO Formulas is a great tool that you can use for keyword research and content marketing.
Long-tail keywords should be focused on. They contain three or more words, for example “women’s black gym leggings.” Phrases and words like this are great for your website, as they are more specific and can give a better understanding of what your site visitors are interested in and looking for.
2) Content marketing
Content marketing plays such a critical role in improving your SEO. It helps boost your website traffic and keeps engaged visitors on your site for longer. With great content comes an increase in your brand recognition and therefore more sales.
Content should be valuable to the end reader. This is not a sales pitch for your products but a magnet to attract the right audience. Once you start building traffic to your site that attracts your key audience, organic sales should start to flow in.
3) Readable structure
Having clean product collections and a great product structure on your website will boost your SEO. Your product pages are super important to your website, as these showcase your products and are what customers look at to make a purchase.
Having high-quality product pages will inform your visitors about the product and make them feel confident to make a purchase. Ensure you have great imagery; this is the first thing a potential consumer will look at to ensure it’s a good fit for them. The images should be high resolution and really express your product, capturing it from all angles.
Your product descriptions should be super informative and provide your audience with all the information that they need. Talk about the product’s key features and benefits, and show how your products can fit your consumers’ needs and offer a solution for them.
4) Stitched or knitted content
Stitching all your content together is an easy way to boost your SEO. Create clean collections for your products. Include products in these collections that make sense. Once you’ve got your product collections generated, you can start creating blog posts that can then link to these collections and products.
For example, if you have a collection named “Sweatshirts,” you can write a blog post on the Best 5 sweatshirts, and then link to the collection within the blog post and vice versa.
By having all your collections, products and website content internally linked, it shows Google that your site is well presented and makes sense. If relevant keywords are used on your website and interlinked, it will boost your SEO.
5) Press section
Make it easy for people to talk about your brand and mention it on their social media pages and blogs. Provide brand assets and guide people on how they can speak about your brand, giving specific words and phrases to use. Particular imagery and brand photography is also good for this. The more people can share about your brand, Google sees this as trusted and will rank you higher for the topics people mention your brand in.
6) Create a community
This is a fantastic way to get people talking about your brand. Communities are a great place where people can discuss your brand and products. It’s good for SEO, as it shows people are talking about topics related to your brand outside of your own website. People can use specific keywords and discuss topics that are key for getting your business to rank higher.
7) Partnerships
Having key partnerships with other brands that make sense is a great way to improve your store’s SEO. The more people that you can get talking about your brand, the easier it will become to rank higher on Google search results.
Partnerships are key to unlocking new audiences and giving content extra push power. If you can create powerful content with another brand that is shareable and linkable, it will strengthen your website. By not only putting your content in front of more people, it will generate numerous media mentions and links that will all contribute to a better SEO ranking.
8) Freebies & giveaways
Freebies and giveaways are fantastic ways to create shareable content and get more backlinks to your website. Backlinks are important, as these come from other sites linking to yours, making it reputable.
By creating giveaways, it gives an easy method for people to share and post about your brand. It gets your brand out there and ensures more people talk about it. You want more people and sites mentioning your giveaway to gain backlinks to your site. Selecting a prize that resonates with your audience is key to a successful giveaway.
9)Social
Having social media profiles for your brand is important for becoming trusted and recognised. With the majority of people now checking out social media profiles before buying, it’s always good to have the basic ones setup. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and the main profiles that companies now set up.
TikTok is a consistently trending app and is as popular as Instagram if not greater. Consumers spend a lot of their time on social media so having good shareable and likeable content is key to winning them over.
Let’s conclude
We hope the above points have helped you to boost your SEO for your Shopify store. Whether you use the just one method or all of the above, you should now be able to focus on improving your SEO. Luckily, Shopify automatically generates a sitemap and ensures all your store pages are indexed properly and can be found easily.
If you want to push your SEO further, then take a look at 8 must have Shopify apps to improve SEO.
