The Complete Shopify SEO Guide To Rank Your Website On Google In 2023

Now that you understand what Shopify SEO is, let’s take a look at the steps you can take to rank your Shopify website in 2023.

1. Register Your Shopify Store On Search Engines

Google and Bing are the two most important search engines, and it’s essential to register your Shopify store with them. This will help search engines discover your website and crawl it more often, improving your chances of ranking higher.

You can register your Shopify store on Google by creating a Google Search Console account. You can also submit your website URL to Bing Webmaster Tools, which will enable you to track how well your shop is performing in Bing search results.

Besides appearing in search engine results, registering your website with Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools will get you notified about possible technical issues related to crawling or usability.

2. Optimize Your Shopify Store Structure

With the right keywords and metrics identified, it’s time to optimize your Shopify store structure. Optimization means ensuring your website is organized so that it is easy for search engines to crawl and index your content.

Plus, you need to make it convenient enough for Shopify visitors to browse your website.

For Visitors

Online shoppers want to find the products they’re looking for quickly and easily.

So, your Shopify store should be organized in a way that allows customers to find what they’re looking for without any help. This means having a clear navigation system, using categories, and labeling product pages appropriately.

Also, try to keep each category accessible with just two or three clicks from the home page.

For example, Home > Category > Sub-category > Product — that’s it. Adding more and more layers might make the visitor feel lost, which could ruin the experience.

Also, add a search bar so customers can easily find out what they’re looking for.

Tip: Add About Us and Contact Us pages — they might not seem so useful for a shopping experience, but they help build trust with your visitors.

For Search Engines

Search engine spiders need to be able to crawl your website easily in order for it to rank higher in organic search results. For that, you need to create a Shopify sitemap of your online store.

A sitemap is basically a list of all the pages on your website that you want search engines to crawl.

It should include all of your product pages, category pages, blog posts, and other content.

You can create a sitemap using tools like Yoast SEO or Screaming Frog to help search engines easily find and index your content. Or, you can use the Shopify automatic generator to create a Shopify sitemap. Use this link: www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.

Once you have submitted the sitemap, it will be easier for search engines to “index” the content of your Shopify site.

What is “index?”

Indexing means registering your content in the database of Google or other search engines.

In simple words, indexing your category pages, attributes, product pages, or other pages means your ecommerce site will now appear on the search engine results page (SERP).

We’ll get into more indexing details in the technical SEO part of this blog post.

3. Conduct Keyword Research To Identify The Right Search Terms

The first step to SEO success is researching the right keywords to target. This involves finding out what people are searching for when they’re looking for products or services like yours and identifying the most relevant terms that you can optimize your site for.

Understand Intent

However, first, you need to understand an interesting concept behind search queries: search intent.

You see, not everyone is looking to buy something. Some people are just looking for information. They type in keywords like “how to fix a sink” or “is it okay to wear a hoodie at parties.”

These users only need information.

Therefore, it’s important to focus on keywords that have commercial intent. These are terms that indicate a buying intent, such as “buy shoes online” or “best running shoes on sale.”

Use The Right Tools

You can use a keyword research tool like Google’s Keyword Planner or Ahrefs’s Keyword Generator to find out what keywords you should be targeting. These tools allow you to research keyword search volumes, as well as related terms and long-tail keywords that you can use to target more specific searches.

However, there’s another interesting and effective way to target high-traffic keywords, and that is using the Google auto suggest feature.

Type your main keyword into the Google search bar and wait. Google will show you suggestions based on what people are searching on the internet. This gives you a good collection of long-tail keywords you can target.

Tip: Since we’re focusing on Shopify and ecommerce in general, you can do the same with Amazon.

But if you plan on spending money on Ahrefs’ monthly subscription, you must understand what keywords to go after.

Identify The Right Metrics

Once you’ve identified the target keywords, you need to determine which metrics to focus on. This includes things like search volume, keyword difficulty, and ranking potential.

Search volume will tell you how often a keyword is being searched for on Google, while keyword difficulty shows the competition level of the keyword. The higher the difficulty, the tougher it will be to rank for that keyword.

Finally, you need to measure the ranking potential of each keyword, which will help you determine the keywords that are worth targeting. This can be done using tools such as Moz’s Keyword Explorer or Ahrefs’ Keyword Difficulty Score.

4. Write Content That’s Optimized For Search Engines

Once you’ve identified the right keywords, it’s time to create content that’s optimized for search engines. This means writing blog posts, product descriptions, and other types of content that contain the keywords you’re targeting.

There are two aspects to content optimization when it comes to search engine optimization.

Product Pages And Category pages

First, let’s discuss the “commercial” aspect of your content and understand how you can optimize your Product Pages & Category Pages.

Include your keywords in the following:

• Title tags, meta tags, and meta descriptions – They are the first thing that users see when they search for a keyword on Google, so it’s important to make sure they are optimized.
• URLs – Make sure that the URLs of your pages are descriptive and include keywords that are relevant to the content.
• Alt tags (or alt text) – Alt tags are added to images to function as a text alternative for search engines. This is a great way to get an extra boost in rankings for your images.

All of these are important on-page SEO elements. By optimizing them, you can help ensure that your pages are more visible in search results.

Tip: Adding modifiers such as “Coupon,” “Discount,” and “Free Shipping” in your meta description can increase clickthrough rate (or CTR), which is a strong ranking factor in the eyes of Google.

Informational Pages/Blog Posts

The second aspect of content optimization is focusing on informational pages such as blog posts.

When writing a blog post, you should focus on creating content that offers value to readers and is written in an engaging way.

Your blogs should include:

Relevant keywords – Make sure that you include the target keywords in headings, subheadings, and throughout the body text.

Internal linking – Internal links are one of the most important SEO techniques, and they help keep visitors on your site for longer. They also signal to search engines that you’re providing relevant content and help them understand the structure of your website.

External links – External links are also a great way to show authority and credibility on your site. They also help search engines understand the context of your content.

However, it is recommended that you only link to relevant and credible websites with a good reputation and avoid linking to irrelevant or low-quality sources.

With that said, also keep in mind that you wouldn’t want to link to your competitors. Why is that?

First, it will get them free traffic. Second, it can possibly help them rank better than your website, which you obviously don’t want.

Optimized images – Images are a great way to break up text and make your posts more interesting. Don’t forget to add image alt text to rank higher in Google Image search.

By optimizing your blog posts for search engines, you can help ensure that more people will find your content and click through to your website.

Important: Blogs are an important part of any brand’s content marketing strategy. So, add a blog to your ecommerce website and make sure its content is optimized for both search results and readers.

5. Monitor and Track Your Progress

The final step in the process is to monitor and track your progress using SEO tools. Why?

Because you should always be on top of how your efforts are performing and look for ways to improve.

Tools such as Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and Ahrefs can provide you with useful insights into how your content is performing in search engine rankings and how much organic traffic you are receiving.

You should also keep an eye on your competitors’ SEO efforts. Tools such as Ahrefs can help you identify keywords and content topics that your competitors are targeting. This can give you an idea of what type of content is performing well and help you come up with ideas for your own content strategy.

By tracking your progress, you can see what’s working and adjust your SEO strategy accordingly.