There are over one million merchants around the world on Shopify.
As a shop owner, you can supplement your income or even become a full-time entrepreneur and business owner.
However, there's a lot of competition. How do you set your shop apart from the rest?
By using SEO for Shopify and optimizing your site for search engine rankings. Keep reading to learn more about why you should be using SEO for your store and how to get started seeing results right away.
If you're new to SEO or running your own Shopify website, you might be wondering what all the buzz is about. Before we get into the details, let's take a moment to briefly cover the basics.
What is SEO? And why is it so important for your store?
SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. To put this in layman's terms, SEO helps you get more visitors to your store via search engines like Google and Bing.
And you won't just get more visitors, you'll get better visitors.
What makes a visitor better than another? You want the visitors to your store to already be interested in your products.
When you optimize your Shopify store, search engines used by potential customers get a better idea of what you're all about. Then, they "recommend" you, so to speak, by doing the following:
The bottom line is that you need to create an SEO friendly store if you want more customers and more money, and who doesn't want that?
Now that you understand the importance of SEO, let's take a closer look at putting these principles into action in your store.
Shopify is an SEO-friendly platform, which means you're already set up for success. While you won't necessarily see results overnight, if you follow these steps, you'll be on your way to initial results.
Keywords are the most basic element of SEO. A keyword is a phrase a potential customer must search for to get your store to show up in the search results.
Your first task is to identify keywords that are relevant to your products and brand and are already being searched for by potential customers. You can use a keyword tool to do this.
Once you know what your keywords are, you have to show search engines that they are relevant to your site. You can do this by consistently and appropriately using them on your site.
Your store should be easy for customers to navigate. The way your site is structured helps search engines determine how easy or hard it is for customers to locate products on your site.
If you want to make sure search engines know about your store, it's best to tell them yourself. Verifying your store with search engines like Google and Bing as well as registering your sitemap can give you a head start.
Search engines prefer sites that load quickly. Increasing your store's speed can improve your ranking.
You can use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) via plugins, limit external scripts and custom codes, use web-safe fonts, and compress image sizing.
Activating your SLL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate can increase trust in your site by both consumers and search engines. Click here to learn how.
You can make your site more interesting and trustworthy by creating content that adds value beyond your product pages themselves. Creating content that users value creates depth and helps foster a relationship with your brand.
You'll also capture the interests of more potential customers. The keys to creating content that performs well in search results include:
Try creating original articles, guides, and blog posts to get started.
The reality is that most of your customers will be using their mobile devices to view your store. For this reason, it's important to mobilize your site for these users.
You can do this by using a theme that is designed for mobile use. Be sure your text is easy to see and read and make sure your call to action buttons are big and clear.
To encourage users to search for your site directly, you want to use a variety of methods to increase traffic. These include marketing your brand on social media, investing in Google ads, and selling on multiple channels.
Search engines evaluate their success by how quickly users return to the search results page after visiting your site. This is called a bounce rate.
You can reduce your bounce rate by using:
Following these steps for SEO for Shopify will increase your store's visibility and increase traffic to your site. As a result, you'll see an increase in sales figures.
But the first step in ranking and getting organic traffic is optimizing for SEO. SEO is a lot to learn. Don't be afraid to call in a pro.
Click here to get started and learn more about the SEO services we offer.
