This article will discuss the essential Shopify SEO checklist. This will allow you to rank higher in search engine results and drive more visitors to your site.

Shopify store owners often find it difficult to understand how search engines rank and index pages. It is therefore important to understand how SEO can assist them.

It is hard to start your business despite all the available digital marketing channels and eCommerce platforms.

Shopify powers over 1,000,000 small- and large-sized businesses worldwide. SEO will help increase search traffic to your store which, in turn, will lead to more sales. 

Shopify SEO: Can you do it?

Shopify offers many SEO tools. You can create a blog or redirect. Shopify’s SEO tools can lead to SEO issues such as duplicate URLs and page titles.

We will show you how to do Shopify SEO. This checklist can be used for all Shopify eCommerce sites to increase your organic traffic.

Shopify SEO Checklist: How to Do Shopify’s Search Engine Optimization

1. The Essential Tools

Create the tools you need to optimize Shopify’s website.

Google Analytics

If you haven’t already, we recommend you immediately set up Google Analytics for your website. This web analytics tool monitors and reports traffic to websites.

Google Analytics lets you learn:

• Conversion rates and the total number of conversions
• How much are you making from SEO?
• What pages have the highest value?

Install Google Search Engine

Google Search Console is another great tool to help Shopify SEO.

Google Search Console helps website owners monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot the visibility of their site in search results.

This gives you valuable information about your website’s Google Search traffic. 

• Which keywords and queries drive the most traffic to your site?
• The click-through rate for your page within the SERP (search engine results page)
• How has the ranking of your keywords changed over time 

Google Search Console can also be used for technical SEO tasks such as:

• Sitemaps, individual URLs to Google crawling, and index coverage
• Recognize potential problems and alert others
• Checking robot.txt file for errors

Log in to Search Console to submit sitemaps to Google.

Shopify creates a sitemap file that lists all pages on your website. Here you can add information about pages, videos, or other files.

Shopify store owners can access their sitemaps through [www.yourstore.com/sitemap.xml].

Search Google Search Console to find crawling errors.

Google and other search engines index websites by crawling the pages and using robots. Fix the errors as soon as possible.

Bonus: Kobe Digital’s free Conversion Rate Checker Tool is available to help you identify potential problems that could reduce your conversion rates.

2. Use SEO keywords to find eCommerce keywords.

SEO is all about keyword research. This involves finding the most searched terms and phrases in search engines.

The basics of keyword research for Shopify SEO

This is an important part of the Shopify SEO checklist. This can help Shopify’s SEO.

Keyword research basics: You must know search volume, keyword difficulty, and search intent.

Search volume is the average monthly search volume for a query using a search engine. 

You can use keyword search volumes:

• To determine which products we should launch,
• To find the perfect keyword.

If your toothbrushes are selling and people are searching for bamboo toothbrushes then you might sell the product.

If you’re already selling bamboo toothbrushes, optimize your website for keywords that relate to bamboo toothbrushes. Google will show your product in search results.

Keyword difficulty is a measure of how difficult it is to rank for a specific keyword in search engine results.

To determine if it is worthwhile to invest time and money in keywords, you can evaluate their difficulty. This can include optimizing an organic website for the keyword or bidding on that keyword through a Google Ads Campaign.

If you only have a Shopify eCommerce store, it would be difficult to rank for hard keywords.

It’s important to identify keywords you can rank using a keyword research tool. Keywords that have long-tail keywords are the best.

The primary goal of a user when they use a search engine to search for a query is search intent.

Users often search for resources or answers when they are searching for them. Make sure you understand the intent of your search before you start to search.

A search for “pizza recipe” is different from “takeout pizza”.

A user looking for “how to give vitamins to my dog” wouldn’t be interested in a product website.

The best way to find a search intends to search for it in a search engine.

Do you have product pages, blog pages, or navigational pages? Plan your keyword strategy and do thorough research to get a better rank.

These are four search intent categories.

• Informational
• Navigation
• Commercial
• Transactional

Shopify – Where are the SEO keywords located?

Shopify has four major places where you can find SEO keywords.

• ALT tags
• Meta descriptions
• Titles for pages
• A page’s body

Shopify SEO Tools: Use Keyword Research Tools

Shopify SEO and a keyword strategy are possible with keyword tools.

When it comes to keyword research, you shouldn’t rely on Google Keyword Planner alone.

• Look at the pages and keywords that your competitors have created to identify content gaps.

• Find related keywords, search volumes, search suggestions, and keyword difficulty.
• See the authority and backlinks of a website.

This guide from Neil Patel for keyword research can be very helpful.

Use keywords to map content types

Each page on your website, including the homepage, blog posts, and product pages, can rank for different keywords to help you in your sales funnel.

Top-of-the-funnel keywords typically have higher search volumes but less commercial intent.

Keywords at the middle of the funnel have lower volumes than those in the upper funnel, but they have already entered the sales funnel.

Bottom-of-the-funnel keywords have the lowest search volume but high commercial value. These queries are searched by users to find products.

Prevent Keyword Cannibalization

We have covered Shopify SEO tips in our Shopify SEO guide.

This is a more technical one and equally important to grasp.

Keyword cannibalization refers to too many keywords on the same page or URL of your website.

Each keyword should be targeted with a single URL.

3. Optimize Your Shopify Store

On-page optimization is a must in Shopify SEO checklists. This allows search engines to better understand your content and rank it higher.

Optimize Shopify Meta Descriptions & Titles

Title tags and meta tags are still very powerful elements of on-page SEO. The title tag is what users see in search results when they look for a page.

One H1 tag should only be used on pages. Keywords are often used as the page’s headline. 

Tip – Shopify page titles are pre-populated with H1 tags. Don’t put H1 tags anywhere else on a page. 

Titles of less than 60 characters won’t show up in search engine results. Your main keyword should appear near the top of the page title.

A meta description is the text snippet below the page title in search engine results. Google will often delete meta descriptions that exceed 155 characters. 

Kobe Digital will make sure that your title, meta description, and URL are optimized.

Optimize page titles and meta-descriptions with

• Keywords in the title or meta description
• Power words can drive clicks
• Use numbers, brackets, and parentheses 
• Include a date in your title
• Make sure your page titles are interesting

Scroll down to modify the page’s title and meta description on Shopify.

Optimize titles, meta descriptions, and URLs for Shopify to optimize SEO

• Blog posts
• Products
• Collections
• Homepage
• Pages

Incorporate keywords in page URLs

A URL for a page is a representation of the page’s content that search engines interpret. Shopify makes it easy to optimize URLs and improve SEO.

• In page URLs, include keywords
• Make sure URLs have a short
• Stop using stop words such as “and”, “the”
• Optimize URLs to Blog Posts, Pages, and Products

You can edit your URLs in Shopify’s “Edit Website Optimization” section.

It is not a good idea to change the URL of a page that is receiving traffic or has links. This could affect the traffic and ranking.

Optimize Image Alt Tags & Filenames

Image optimization is an important part of SEO for Shopify stores.

Add descriptive filenames to your images and alt tags.

Google Images accounts for nearly 23% of all web searches.

Give descriptive names to your files. Add descriptive alt tags. This will make sure that your images are displayed in Image results.

Bad filename: img-16354.png. Good filename Mens-white-shirt.png

Include keywords in the Copy

The target keyword should appear in the H1 as well as the body text. Don’t use it too often. 

Use synonyms and LSI keyword

Synonyms and LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords can be used in place of the target keyword.

LSI keywords are conceptually related terms Google uses to understand the topic on a webpage.

You can use LSIGraph to find LSI keywords.

Get more engagement

Many SEOs believe that Google now uses engagement metrics to determine the relevancy of pages within search results. Optimize your pages for eCommerce to increase engagement.

• Add detailed descriptions on your product pages.
• Links to relevant products
• High-quality images and videos are used to illustrate products.
• Highlights and Rankings of Social Proof

Shopify can also target blog SEO 

• Keep your paragraphs and sentences short.
• Choose a simple language
• Use headings and subheadings in a hierarchy.
• Use media such as images, videos, and animated gifs.

Develop a strong internal linking strategy

An inner link is when you link to your site from “Page A” or “Page B”.

Shopify Stores SEO, and all other websites, will benefit from internal links.

• A portion of the SEO value may be transferred from one page to another
• Users need to be able to find the correct content easily.
• Google will help you understand the content of pages.

There are two options for adding links to Shopify eCommerce. You can either manually add them, or add “related products” sections to your product pages.

4. Strong link-building strategy for eCommerce

So far, we have covered Shopify SEO tools as well as keyword research. Link building is just as effective and technically complex as other Shopify SEO methods.

Search engines heavily rely on the authority and website of pages to determine which page ranks first.

SEO is a system that determines the authority of pages and websites. These are top tips for increasing authority through links.

• Search for unlinked mentions. Contact them to request a link.
• Higher authority links are always stronger.
• It’s better to have links from more than one site.
• Guest posting on websites that are relevant to you is possible. You will need to provide a link back from your site.
• Request a review of products and links.

5. Solutions for technical SEO issues

Technical issues can negatively impact search engine rankings. 

Crawl errors are easily detected and corrected

Google can’t see your website properly due to crawl errors. This could lower your rank in search result results.

Google Search Console can be used for crawl errors. These are covered under the Coverage report.

Use a responsive template

Google has recently introduced the mobile-first index. Google will now index your website via its mobile version.

More web traffic is coming from mobile devices Shopify stores that are mobile-friendly will be able to appear on Google’s first-page search results.

Websites that are not responsive have lower usability scores and poor user experience. This can impact your eCommerce store rank in local searches.

You can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Tool to check your shop’s mobile-friendliness and boost SEO for Shopify.

Fix Broken Links

Broken links can not only impact the user experience but also send negative signals to Google. This could harm your Shopify SEO.

Websites that have many broken links look old and unlikely to provide valuable information

Shopify tools like Ahrefs or Screaming frog will help you to find broken links. 

Shopify SEO Optimization: Optimize your page speed

User experience is the most important aspect of search engines. Slow websites can lead to increased bounce rates and visitors leaving your site quickly.

There are many ways to speed up your Shopify website, including Google Pageights and GTmetrix.

Sidenote – Optimizing images on your website can improve page loading speed.

6. Shopify SEO: Use Content Marketing

Let’s take a look at your Shopify SEO checklist.

Content drives clicks, builds brand awareness, and helps customers find you. Keyword research is essential. Target niche keywords for your business.

Although it can be hard to choose what to write, content marketing is a powerful tool for improving search engine rankings.

Take note of all questions your customers may have. Look at the content of your competitors and create valuable content for your users.

This is an excellent way to increase backlinks to your website. 

7. Other marketing channels can help you increase your SEO efforts.

You are now familiar with the basic elements of Shopify’s SEO checklist. It is also important to support your SEO efforts via other marketing channels such as email marketing and social media.

Our guides can help you get started in digital marketing.

•  Conversion rate optimization manual 
•  Digital Marketing Guide

8. Shopify Apps & Tools for a Higher Ranking

Google tools aren’t the only ones that you have access to. Shopify apps are not the only tools you have access to. You also have third-party tools like Kobe Digital.

Kobe Digital lets you optimize Shopify stores to get the best out of your traffic. Kobe Digital lets you create appealing popups.

• Collect the email addresses of your customers for your email marketing campaigns.
• More customers
• Reduce cart abandonment rates
• Discounts and coupons for customers

Kobe Digital can be set up quickly and create Shopify Popups without the use of a plugin. 

Shopify SEO Checklist Infographic

We love to share our knowledge! You can embed our infographic on your website to provide great information about SEO in Shopify stores.

Conclusion

That’s all! This checklist can help you get your shop to the top of Google search results. I hope this detailed Shopify SEO guide helped you.

You will get the top search engine rankings you want sooner than you think.