So, your eCommerce website is all set.
The homepage is amazing, graphics are good and copywriting is superb. BUT, you might have asked yourself, why are you not showing up on Google?
Ugh, what a pain right? You have already spent hundreds or even thousands on your Shopify store, yet you’re still waiting for traffic to come in? You have even considered hiring an SEO agency which promises you a first-class ticket to Google’s page 1!
Before you go and hire and spend another worthless thousand on those, consider learning the basics and terminologies first on Shopify SEO. This will ensure you have the proper judgement call and of course in hiring the ‘legit’ agencies out there.
What really is SEO?
To put it briefly so that it is easy to understand and apply, SEO is like brokering a relationship between the buyer and the sellers, in a digital setup, with forever changing algorithms. Kidding aside though, we might as well see it as an opportunity instead of a problem.
There are technically two kinds of SEO and these are the On-page SEO and the Off-page SEO. On our end, we consider a third one but don’t tell anyone yet as it’s not an official one! You can head on to our Youtube channel to find out what the third one is.
Consequently, let’s differentiate the two.
On-page SEO is really anything that you can see on your website for people to see, like images, videos, etc. and then off-page is actually anything that’s linking into your website and your online footprint A.K.A. blueprint. You might be thinking okay so what now and what’s next? Lucky for you, we compiled some tips to jumpstart your Shopify SEO.
Know what the people are looking for in Google
There are a lot of tools out there to actually find out what your potential clients are searching for. For us, we recommend using a Google chrome plugin called ‘Keywords Everywhere’. Basically you can type in any search keywords and this plugin will actually show you how many searches that particular keyword or phrase has. Then, it’ll also give you lists of other keywords that people are searching for that are similar to those ones so it’s a quick little one that you can use. However, if you don’t want to buy any premium apps yet, the easiest way is just by searching it in Google itself, then go to the bottom section of the page, and you can see the other keywords that people are actually searching for.
Ensure that the page you are ranking for gets identified for what you are ranking for
Confusing? Not really. So basically, you need to ensure that those keywords are actually in your title tags, in your header and that the content on site and the stuff that you’re talking about is relevant to what you are and is consistent always. It also goes back to number one, what is your intention? Do you want them to buy the product? Then talk about it in your post and be consistent about it. Google is an algorithm and it’s one smart algorithm at that so simplify your page and don’t overcrowd those keywords. Focus on your intention.
Use an SEO friendly theme for Shopify
Google is a bot, right? It crawls through each website across the internet. A lot of Shopify plug and play themes are not that easy to navigate for customers and Google per se. So what you or your developer need to do would be to strategise which theme should you be using to make it simpler for Google to crawl your site from page to page. Minimise broken pages and make your website as clean as possible.
How do you even know if Google has a problem with your site? They have a tool called Google Webmaster Tools. Go and get your website verified in there and from there you will be able to see what Google wants you to see: status of your website, pages they can crawl or cannot and many more. The best part? It’s FREE as of this writing.
Create the product page with conversion in mind
When you say conversion, that’s a positive action you are trying to achieve while your potential customers are on your website. Think like a customer and how you want to be treated and apply it to your Shopify store. Always go back to step one, what is your intention for this product page or this blog post and you can start from there.
Ensure that your titles are easily understood and labelled, tags are properly added and images are loading properly. You wouldn’t want to buy products from a shop who labels their products with just SKU-1111 and no proper description, correct? Skip the design and check your grammar. Make it easy and simple to understand how you can help them with the product you are selling. After all, your goal is to sell these products that they already NEED.
Let’s face it, Google is the antagonist you want to be friends with. By abiding by their rules and ensuring the customer experience is parallel to their algorithms, it is not that difficult to practically rank for those keywords phrases that you got. We are not saying that this will be achieved overnight. In fact, we are actually saying it won’t. These tips are enough all ready for you to start with what you have and are likely to give you far more results than dropping your hard-earned cash on the empty promise of overnight success.
