SEO for Shopify is more than just effective or high quality; it’s long-term.
If you are not getting a good ROAS for your old or new Shopify store and your ad costs are jumping up every day, you should now try SEO as your affordable channel of organic growth.
However, for that, your Shopify store needs to be as high as possible in search engine result pages to attract quality traffic, customers, and revenue even while you’re asleep.
SEO for Shopify seems complicated, but not anymore with our Shopify SEO Checklist.
If you use this website SEO checklist correctly, you can fix and improve SEO issues, and your customers will find your Shopify store more efficiently, generating you a good business and high ROI.
7 Shopify SEO Checklist For Organic Customers in 2024
Until now, we are assuming that you already have your custom domain and hosting stuff.
If you don’t, you must get it before implementing this Shopify SEO Checklist on your Shopify Site.
Keyword Research
Researching and finding high-value keywords is the very first step of your Shopify eCommerce SEO checklist.
Keywords are the phrases and queries that people search in Google to find your products and Shopify stores.
You need to pick highly relevant keywords in this research as part of best practices to meet your SEO goals.
For your product pages, start by finding low-competition keywords and make sure to fulfill the search intent.
Here are some example keywords for a Shopify store selling eco-friendly skincare products:
Low-Competition Keywords:
- “Natural skincare products for sensitive skin”
“Organic facial cleanser for acne-prone skin”
“Chemical-free moisturizer for dry skin”
Moderate-Competition Keywords:
- “Sustainable skincare routine”
“Environmentally friendly skincare brands”
“Cruelty-free skincare products”
High-Commercial Intent Keywords:
- “Buy vegan skincare online”
“Best organic skincare deals”
“Discounts on eco-friendly beauty products”
Make sure to use important SEO metrics in research, such as search volume, CPC, and difficulty, so you don’t end up picking wrong or useless keywords as part of your SEO strategy.
Before you target keywords in product pages or your content, sort, organize, and group them.
Site Structure & Navigation
Your goal is to make your Shopify store as meaningful as possible, and this is not possible without a clean site structure or navigation. The Shopify website must be crawled and indexed before it starts appearing in search results.
Without a clean navigation, internal link and store structure, Google bots won’t be able to crawl your store, its pages, categories, and products, and they might take an exit, turning it into a bad SEO signal.
Even if the crawler manages to crawl your site, bad navigation or a Shopify theme will not help your users explore.
So, with this SEO checklist, your goal is to make your Shopify store as accessible and easy to use as possible.
Better use Internal links, breadcrumbs navigation and a proper site hierarchy in a way that every page is accessible with under three clicks from your Shopify website homepage. Also, the navigation menu and navigation bar should be present.
Here’s an example of a site structure for a Shopify eCommerce website specializing in skincare products:
- Homepage:
- Welcome message or tagline
- Featured products or promotions
- Navigation menu highlighting main product categories
- Shop by Category:
- Facial Care
- Cleansers
- Moisturizers
- Serums
- Masks
- Sunscreen
- Body Care
- Lotions
- Body Wash
- Scrubs
- Body Oils
- Hand & Foot Care
- Hair Care
- Shampoos
- Conditioners
- Treatments
- Styling Products
- Special Collections
- Anti-Aging
- Acne Solutions
- Sensitive Skin
- Men’s Skincare
- Travel Size
- Facial Care
- Individual Product Pages:
- Detailed descriptions
- Product images
- Ingredients list
- Customer reviews
- Add to cart / Buy now option
- About Us:
- Brand story
- Mission and values
- Meet the team
- Customer testimonials
- Blog:
- Skincare tips and advice
- Product reviews
- Industry news and trends
- How-to guides
- Contact Us:
- Contact form
- Customer service information
- FAQ section
- FAQs:
- Common questions and answers about products, shipping, returns, etc.
- Privacy Policy and Terms of Service:
- Legal information regarding privacy and website usage
- Search Bar:
- Located prominently for easy navigation
- Footer:
- Quick links to important pages (Home, Shop, About Us, Blog, Contact)
- Social media links
- Newsletter signup form
- Payment and security badge
On-Page Optimization
Shopify’s On-Page SEO checklist can be longer and more technical, but it can ultimately be fruitful if you are dedicated to making your e-commerce business grow or stand out.
The on-page optimization checklist can do wonders if you put things correctly and strategically.
Your Shopify website pages should contain proper heading tags and proper hierarchies, along with schema markups.
You need to ensure that the page targets keywords in the URL, title tags, heading tags, and body of content.
But yes, it should be readable by people and primarily meant for them, not for crawlers or search engine bots.
Keep your URL short with a keyword, your title tags as <H1>, the compelling heading should be under 60 characters, and the meta description should be present, optimized and written correctly for each page in under 160 characters.
Make sure to use images in your Shopify SEO strategy and put alt-text whenever you put them on the pages.
There are several free tools available for on-page optimization that can help you improve your website’s visibility and performance in search engine results. Here are some popular ones:
- Google Search Console: This tool allows you to monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search results. It provides insights into which keywords are driving traffic to your site, identifies indexing issues, and offers suggestions for improving your site’s visibility.
- Google PageSpeed Insights: PageSpeed Insights analyzes the content of a web page and generates suggestions to make that page faster. It provides both lab and field data about a page’s performance, along with actionable recommendations for improving load times.
- Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test: With the majority of web traffic coming from mobile devices, it’s essential to ensure your website is optimized for mobile users. This tool evaluates how mobile-friendly your site is and provides recommendations for improving the mobile experience.
- SEO Minion: SEO Minion is a Chrome extension that offers various on-page SEO analysis features, including analyzing SERP preview, checking broken links, highlighting internal and external links, and analyzing on-page elements like headings, meta tags, and images.
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider: While the free version has limitations on the number of URLs you can crawl, Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a powerful tool for analyzing on-page SEO elements. It crawls your website and provides valuable insights into metadata, heading structure, broken links, and more.
- Yoast SEO (WordPress Plugin): If your website is built on WordPress, Yoast SEO is a popular plugin that offers a range of on-page optimization features. While the free version provides basic functionality like content analysis, readability checks, and XML sitemap generation, the premium version offers more advanced features.
- SEOQuake: SEOQuake is a browser extension available for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge that provides on-page SEO analysis for any webpage. It offers metrics such as keyword density, internal and external links, and domain authority, as well as a SERP overlay that displays key metrics directly in search engine results pages.
- HubSpot’s Website Grader: This tool provides a comprehensive analysis of your website’s performance, including SEO, performance, mobile responsiveness, and security. It generates a detailed report with actionable recommendations for improving various aspects of your site.
Content Strategy
Your product or category pages alone will not bring much value or organic traffic from search engines unless you have a content strategy and blog on your Shopify SEO store.
You should find and incorporate all four types of keyword intent, including Informational, Navigational, Commercial, and Transactional, so you can strategically plan your content strategy.
Targeting Informational queries as part of your Content SEO strategy can bring you most of your traffic.
Focus on finding questions from people in your industry and writing in-depth responses or solutions to attract them.
These questions would already be in your keyword research sheet, but if you need more, you can research them through keyword research tools like answer the public for free.
And yes, delete any duplicate & low-quality content.
Interlink relevant content or product pages so that visitors spend more time on your website and ultimately make a purchase.
If you add a table of contents, relevant media, and proper subheadings, the page will be more extended.
Optimize your Shopify store content for people by making it readable and valuable. Try to bring as much value as possible. Give proper solutions, brainstorm ideas, focus on creativity and use easy words in sentences.
User Experience & Technical SEO
On your Shopify SEO checklist, make sure to include user experience on top or at least under your eyes so you won’t neglect it. Neglecting user experience will make things wrong for them.
User experience & technical SEO checklist should be heavily focused on optimizing page speed, making your Shopify website user-friendly and responsive.
Otherwise, these selected areas can negatively dent your SEO strategy.
Keep running technical audits and tests on your site to ensure that there are no unseen technical issues.
To make your store more efficient, fix broken links in your site and find and fix any conflicting plugins, code, or scripts in the backend. Over time, you may detect crawl errors, and when you do, fix them as soon as possible.
Off-Page Optimization
Off-page SEO should focus on acquiring high-quality, relevant, and diverse backlinks strategically so that your Shopify store pages can rank higher and higher.
Google encourages websites with quality links on them as it serves as a vote of confidence to them as people trust or know you. There could be endless opportunities, methods and ways to optimize the off-page of your store.
The very first approach should be to build links on relevant forums and invest in guest posting or niche edits. Incorporate unlinked brand mentions in your link-building strategy or build relations with fellow content creators.
Here’s a concise list of the best backlinks to build:
- Editorial Backlinks from High-Quality Websites
- Guest Posts on Niche-Relevant Websites
- Resource Page Links
- Broken Link Building
- Industry Directories and Listings
- Social Media Profiles Links
- Press Releases and PR Outreach
- Set up SEO Tools & Apps For Monitoring
After doing all these things, you can’t just sit now and relax. A brilliant SEO strategy for e-commerce websites and Shopify stores should be to keep things in monitoring and track performance.
First, you need to set up SEO apps such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console, or Bing Webmasters to track the performance and growth of your Shopify project.
Third-party SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz can also help you track performance and provide actionable tips and valuable data.
The success of your SEO performance totally depends on your SEO strategy, implementation and monitoring.
FAQs
Q: Why is SEO important for Shopify stores in 2024?
A: SEO is crucial for Shopify stores in 2024 because it provides a cost-effective channel for organic growth and sustainable success.
Q: Do I need technical expertise to implement the Shopify SEO Checklist?
A: While technical expertise can be beneficial, our Shopify SEO Checklist is designed to be accessible to all levels of expertise. With step-by-step guidance and practical tips, you can effectively implement SEO strategies to enhance your Shopify store’s performance and visibility.
Q: How long does it take to see results from Shopify SEO efforts?
A: The timeline for seeing results from Shopify SEO efforts can vary depending on various factors such as competition, keyword difficulty, and the effectiveness of your strategies. While some improvements may yield immediate results, significant progress often requires consistent effort and patience over time.
Q: Can I implement the Shopify SEO Checklist on my own, or do I need professional assistance?
A: The Shopify SEO Checklist is designed to empower Shopify store owners to optimize their websites independently. However, if you require additional assistance or expertise, you may consider consulting with SEO professionals or agencies to maximize your results and accelerate your SEO journey.
Q: How often should I revisit and update my Shopify SEO strategy?
A: SEO is a dynamic and ever-changing field, so it’s essential to regularly revisit and update your Shopify SEO strategy to adapt to changes in algorithms, trends, and market dynamics. Aim to conduct periodic audits and assessments to ensure that your SEO efforts remain effective and aligned with your business goals.
