With over 2 million Shopify merchants selling their products online, it has become “the hub” for e-commerce brands to get more visibility through SEO (search engine optimization). And around 82% of marketers claim that SEO has helped them meet their business goals.

And rightfully so, because Google processes 5.9 million searches per minute. According to a report, the click-through rate for the #1 search result is 22.4%, 13%, and 10% for #2 and #3 respectively. And the 10th result only gets 2.3% clicks.

Now the question is…

…Does your store appear on the first page of search results?

I don’t think so.

You know it. I know it.

And the way I know this is that…

…You wouldn’t be here reading this guide if your store was on the first page of Google. You’d be busy printing loads of money.

But since you’re here, allow me to help you improve your ranking and run your Shopify store like you always wanted to. All you have to do is follow this step-by-step SEO guide.

Once you apply these SEO practices, you’ll drive more traffic to your website. Such that when a potential buyer types in a keyword to buy something, your website will appear in a search result like this.

Feels great, right? So let’s start with the very basic step.

How to Prepare Your Shopify Store for SEO?

You ask?

I hear you.

I’ve laid out everything in actionable and easy-to-understand steps.

Choose a Shopify plan that lets you optimize for SEO. It’s fine if you don’t want to buy that plan at this point and test the waters with a free trial.

However, the 14-day trial won’t give you sufficient time to measure results. It usually takes four months to a year for Google to rank your website higher in the search results.

Google follows the mobile-first indexing approach. This means that it first makes sure your store is mobile-friendly and then allows it to appear in search results. Therefore, pick a responsive or mobile-friendly theme that can easily adjust to various screen sizes.

You can test the responsiveness of your website using Lighthouse – Google’s mobile-friendly test tool.

If your mobile store isn’t up to the mark with Google’s standards, you don’t stand a chance of ranking well on search engines.

Install Google Seach Console. It will allow you to track your store’s overall SEO performance.

Set up a project in Semrush. By doing so, you’ll have everything domain-related in one place.

Here’s how to do this.

Go to Semrush’s Projects page → enter your domain name → follow step-by-step instructions.

When the project is all set, add Google integrations to integrate the newly added project with Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

And your Shopify store is all set and ready to go live.

Now, let’s explore the specifics of SEO that’ll put your store in front of more people.

12 Shopify SEO Tips to Boost Your Store’s Visibility

1. Set a Store Structure

The way your web pages are organized and are somehow related to each other through internal links (hyperlinks on a page that lead to other web pages) is called website architecture.

A good site architecture is a blend of relevant content and a logical hierarchy so that search engines can grasp it easily and then put it in front of people.

For example, Clinique is a makeup and skincare brand with a crystal clear website structure. The homepage, product category pages makeup and skincare, the subcategory page, and then all the individual product pages are immediately accessible to a user.

Other important pages like About Us, shipping details, social media handles, etc are also accessible via the bottom menu. You should model your Shopify store after this architecture.

Tip: All of your webpages should have internal links and a page without any internal links is called an orphan page. It’s hard for search engines to find such pages, which means they most likely won’t show up in a search result.

2. Customize Your Store’s Domain

When you first sign up for Shopify, it assigns you a name, which is a mixture of your domain name and random numbers. For example…

You’d want to remove those figures because…

As a business owner, you want people to remember your store so that they directly type your store’s URL and visit your store without any distractions. This number will make it 100x harder for them to do so.
They aren’t relevant to your business in any way shape or form.

To change the domain name, simply go to the Shopify dashboard → click on the Settings sidebar menu.

Click on Domains.

Under your current URL, select Change to a new myshopify.com domain.

Enter your new store domain.

Finally, click Add domain.

If you want your URL to be ‘yourstorename.com’ instead of ‘yourstorenname.myshopify.com’, then click on the Buy new domain button.

3. Improve Your Store’s Loading Time

This is how fast a page loads. The shorter the time, the more it gives users a seamless experience and they’re more likely to buy. Conversely, longer loading time agitates people and they’re more prone to bouncing off your page.

Besides, your website’s speed also factors in the higher ranking of your store in search results.

That said, you can increase the loading speed following this process.

Minimizing the unnecessary page elements in a webpage’s CSS, Javascript, or HTML can speed up loading time.

Use the Shopify-recommended image formats, such as PNG or JPG.

Compressing large image files directly impacts the loading speed.

Minimize your code by reducing the unnecessary elements in your pages’ HTML, CSS, and JavaScript can improve your page speed

Tip: You can use Semrush’s Site Audit tool to check your store’s speed. After the audit, it’ll give you some tips and tricks to optimize your site’s performance.

4. Find Relevant Keywords

Keywords are the phrases that your target audience uses to find things on a search engine, like Yahoo, Bing, or Google. Knowing what keywords people are using in your industry is a surefire way to get enormous exposure, which translates into you printing loads of money.

Why is it so?

For one, when you incorporate the right keywords in your content, it signals a search engine that your content is relevant to people’s queries. A search engine then puts it in front of people and ranks your website higher over time.

There are different types of keywords, however, the ones you should target are short and generic keywords known as “seed keywords.”

Let’s say you own a jewellery store. Ideally, you should target the following keywords.

Bracelets
Necklaces
Silver rings
Couple rings

Now, enter one of them in the Keyword Magic Tool. Now, check out the list we got here.

Now, scrutinize the list and find the highly specific keywords. The following key metrics will play a significant role in doing this right.

Search Volume is the number of times a keyword is searched per month on average.

Search Intent is the intention behind every search. To play this right, you’d want to target keywords with transactional internet – indicating that a consumer wants to buy something immediately – or with commercial intent – people who are exploring a suitable option. You can also use informational keywords to educate those who are on the fence about buying something.

Keyword Difficulty means on a scale of 0-100%, how competitive it is for a keyword to rank in the top 10 searches. The higher the percentage, the harder it is.

Ideally, you should use keywords with good search volume but less difficulty scores. In the present case, “couple rings” sounds like a promising option.

Check the checkbox next to the keyword and then select the blue header “Add to keyword list” above it.

Repeat this process until you find all the suitable keywords for your store.

6. Publish Blog Posts

Done with keywords? Good.

The next step is to write SEO-optimized blog posts around them, especially around informational keywords.

Search engines reward high-quality and authentic content by ranking it higher in the search results.

7. Optimize Your Product and Category Pages

Optimizing blog posts is only half the battle. You also need to do the heavy lifting on your category and product pages using the right keywords and internal links.

A category page should contain subcategories. In your case, it should be “Sterling Rings”, “Couple Rings”, “ Bracelets”, etc to give a smooth shopping experience.

The same goes for your product page. It should include the following.

Good quality images

Links to product variants

A title with your target keyword

Links to similar products in your store

A product description with your primary and secondary keywords

Adding other elements like reviews, FAQs, and shipping information is the icing on the cake.

8. Optimize Your URL Slugs, Title Tags, H1 Tags, & Meta Descriptions

All pages on your store should have a URL slug, title tag, H1 tag and meta description for best SEO practices. Here’s what these terms mean.

URL slug is the last part of a URL.
A title tag is the specific webpage title that appears in a search result.
The H1 tag is the title of a page itself. To avoid confusing a consumer, we recommend keeping your title and H1 tag similar. Also, use your primary keywords in both of them.
A meta description is the summary of your page that also appears in search results. It’s usually the second thing that a user reads after a title while evaluating all the search results.

Keep your URL slug easy to understand so that a search engine can easily grasp what your page is about.

11. Get Backlinks to Build Authority

Backlinks are when other sites point to your website through their content. This is one possible way to improve your SEO score because it tells search engines that people see you as an authority in a niche.

You can either reach out to reputable website owners and request a collaboration. Alternatively, focus on creating quality content so that big businesses start seeing you as worthy of being featured on their websites.

That’s all there’s to it.

Learnt something valuable? Tell us in the comments below.