Is Shopify Good or Bad for SEO?
There are many reasons as to why Shopify is such a popular platform for eCommerce web store development. Between a very reliable uptime to a great host of basic features, thousands of online brands use it as a web store host and for good reason.
In terms of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), there are a lot of benefits to enjoy. An easy-to-use backend makes it simple to integrate tons of on-page SEO best practices, while access to thousands of helpful apps makes the process even easier. Shopify is also a very agile system that doesn’t easily become bogged down or slow when you are trying to grow the footprint of your online store. This is a good thing for keeping impatient customers and search engines like Google happy.
So, what’s the downside to using Shopify for your eCommerce store? There is little you can do in terms of customization for optimization purposes. For example, you cannot edit your sitemap or robots.txt file. There are also certain tags added to URLs that can be a little annoying, and adding content that isn’t specific to a product can be pretty difficult. However, if you’re a beginner, there’s a good chance you won’t need to take these more technical steps anyway, so Shopify is still a great choice.
What else makes the platform so great for eCommerce? If you’re working with Shopify experts, they can help you optimize your page to fit in with your overall traffic, sales, and digital marketing goals. In the end, this only amplifies your success and makes it easier to grow and scale your brand.
Why is SEO Important for Shopify Stores?
Let’s be honest. Search Engine Optimization is important for everyone, not just Shopify stores. If people can’t find you on Google or across the web, they cannot do business with you. It’s just that simple.
However, eCommerce brands need SEO a little bit more than someone with a website providing general information about a brick-and-mortar company or service provider. When it all comes down to it, performing well on both a paid and an organic level can mean the difference between having extremely successful sales days and having a hard time selling products on a consistent basis.
Tasks like showcasing products on Google Shopping, adding images to Google Image Search, and optimizing your description copy with proper keywords are crucial eCommerce SEO strategies designed to help you get ranked and outperform the competition. Furthermore, by taking best practices into consideration, you can easily and effectively put your branding in front of more people and get them familiar with your overall message. This starts the beginning of the customer journey, which is crucial to growing your Shopify store. In short, you have to pay attention to SEO when you have an online business. And that’s why working with an eCommerce expert like our team here at CAKE is so important.
How to Improve Your Shopify SEO
At CAKE, we take Search Engine Optimization seriously. We want to see you succeed and take your Shopify SEO successes as personal wins for our team. Here are a few of our top Shopify SEO tips to help you get started.
#1:Turn Off Additional Branding
Make sure to turn off the additional branding feature in the settings area of Shopify. Leaving this on can cause your SEO tags to become truncated, which isn’t something that you want.
#2: Focus on Internal Linking
Another tip is to focus on internal linking to improve eCommerce SEO. Choose the proper anchor text and internal linking strategy to aid in domain authority growth. This also helps Google bots understand your website’s hierarchy, which is important for ranking.
#3: Submit Your Sitemap to Google Search Console
Imagine telling your friend to come to your house for a dinner party, but never giving them directions on how to get there. That’s exactly what happens when you don’t submit your sitemap to Google. While Shopify automatically generates a sitemap.xml file, if you don’t tell Google where it is at, your site will never get crawled. Instead, double and triple-check that search engines have what they need.
#4: Install a Good Plugin for Schema Markup
You want to ensure your product pages have the correct schema markup. The easiest way to do this is with an app, such as JSON‑LD for SEO or Plug in SEO. Both are great at applying tags to every product in your store without making you go through each page individually.
#5: Talk to a Shopify SEO Expert for a Marketing Audit
Of course, if you’re completely new to eCommerce optimization, talking to a Shopify SEO expert may be your best bet. Most Shopify agencies – including CAKE – understand the importance of search ranking in terms of building an online brand and have pretty solid techniques for seeing vast improvement. In fact, many eCommerce marketing strategists will even give you a list of things necessary to optimize your web store.
How Do I Choose a Company for Shopify SEO?
Choosing a company to improve your Shopify SEO strategy doesn’t have to be difficult. Our team at CAKE is obsessed with helping online stores like yours create the perfect marketing mix and cannot wait to speak with you.
Why? Well, for starters, we’re also shoppers. We want to be able to jump onto Google, type in a query, and see new and exciting brands pop up on the front page of search engine results. And we really want those results to include your Shopify store!
Finally, we just have a total knack for all things eCommerce, Shopify, and digital marketing. We mean it when we say we’re fanatics of the industry and cannot wait to help you grow your business to new heights.
Are you ready to learn more about our sweet eCommerce SEO services or receive a Shopify SEO marketing audit? Get in touch with us today.