Shopify SEO services are important, in fact they are more important than a marketing app. This is because of the fact that-
Bad SEO can break or make your online store. And while creating an online business on Shopify is a piece of cake, generating traffic to the store is quite challenging. You can use search engine optimization to get cheap organic traffic directed to your store.
In this post, we are going to give you the list of best Shopify SEO services & apps for helping your better rank your website on Google search engine.
Best Shopify SEO Services
1. Fiverr
Fiverr is an online marketplace for finding unique gigs. You can easily find budget-friendly Shopify SEO services on this platform. Some of the top services are Google ad campaign creation, Shopify SEO fixes, Google ranking, and ad optimization.
This service marketplace has over 500 unique categories that offer on-demand freelancers for different types of projects. This global online marketplace even offers additional Shopify services like video creation, product research and more.
2. Wishpond
Wishpond is originally a lead generation and marketing automation. They offer Shopify marketing services that can help with both SEO and sales generation. You can optimize, re-design landing pages, grow your email list, and get more customers.
This Shopify SEO and marketing service primarily focus on these things –
- Increasing customer lifetime value – Generate higher profit using over-the-time marketing campaigns.
- Converting subscribers into customers – They create newsletters and shopping cart abandonment emails based on user behavior.
- Boosting customer engagement rate – Unique landing pages, automated pop-ups and site widgets.
This is specifically good for those who have a single product dropshipping site.
3. Shopify Experts Marketplace
Shopify has a dedicated marketplace for finding the best quality Shopify services SEO, marketing, branding, store setup, and more.
They have both individuals as well as organizations for different services. One of the best ones is Whitecap SEO, a company providing Shopify SEO services for many years.
The USA based Shopify SEO service has dedicated professionals for handling search engine work in different industries including Clothing & fashion, food & drink, health & beauty, and home & garden.
That said, if you want to explore multiple SEO services on an expert marketplace, then you can simply post a job on this platform. You will then start receiving bids from different SEO experts.
4. Upwork
Upwork is a freelancing marketplace where you can find tons of Shopify experts for SEO services. You will have to create a client account and post the job with your requirements. You will start receiving bids from different professionals after a few hours.
This platform lets you view specifics about the freelancers applying on your job including past jobs, ratings, qualifications and more. You can decide on the expert level you’d want the Shopify expert to be on.
Alternatively, you can search for a specific service like Google ad campaign creation for finding upworkers that have posted a specific service.
Best Shopify SEO Apps –
5. SEO Doctor
Every beginner in the SEO world will love this app. In fact, SEO Doctor is considered equivalent to a real SEO specialist. It automatically detects (and fix) all the SEO issues including broken links, meta description, image optimization and more.
Some noteworthy features
- An advanced compression algorithm: You can apply this algorithm to decrease image sizes, change file names, and alt-text.
- Test for mobile-friendliness: You can implement the corresponding test to know whether Google evaluates your Shopify store good enough to operate on mobile devices.
- Structured data: The app offers support for JSON-LD data that can help your Shopify store have a higher ranking on Google.
- Automatic reparation for links causing the 404 error: You and your customer will never identify a broken link on your store.
Price – Free up to 50 products
6. Plug in SEO
When it comes to fixing SEO errors, you cannot miss one of the most excellent Shopify apps for SEO – Plugin in SEO. More than 30,000 store owners have used the app to improve SEO and generate traffic.
Some noteworthy features
- JSON-LD structured data: The app offers the most complete and up-to-date schema markup for rich snippets.
- Multilingual SEO: The app supports multilingual SEO – a must-have feature in the era of globalization.
- SEO bulk editor: It is time-intensive and boring to change 500 headings, titles, or meta descriptions one by one. Plug in SEO can handle this task in just a few minutes.
- Automatic SEO audits: You will get a report of your On-page SEO audit through email. Or you can identify the SEO errors in the app.
- Monitor organic traffic: Thanks to the built-in Google Search Console, you can keep track of rankings and organic traffic analytics.
Price – You can get started for free
7. AVADA SEO Suite
AVADA Seo Suite can assist store owners in building parts of on-page SEO without making any effort. It does a great job of optimizing website photos and structure to be most matching to the Google Search algorithm.
Some noteworthy features
- SEO analysis for the product page: To improve each product page, the SEO Suit app shows all SEO issues, enhancements, and great results per product. Therefore, admins can follow the recommended improvements and make some changes timely.
- SEO checklist: The app will check and give out all SEO problems on your site.
- Prevent duplicate content: You can include canonical tags to prevent duplicate content on your site.
- Google Search Console: The SEO Suite is well integrated with Google Search Console that enables you to follow and control your site’s search traffic and performance.
- Image size and quality optimization: To decrease your site loading time, the app will help you compress image sizes with automated optimization.
- Weekly email report: Email reports will be automatically sent to store admins, which helps them better manage significant issues on their sites.
Price – Avada SEO Suite is a free for up to 50 products.
How to optimize your Shopify store for SEO
1. Perform keyword research
Keyword research is an important aspect of Shopify SEO, and it will help you rank better on search engines and generate good revenue. Keyword analysis will show you what keywords are easier to rank and how you can use them to get targeted traffic to your eCommerce store. And it is due to this reason that we have placed this the first thing to do on how to do SEO on Shopify.
One of the best keyword research tools is KwFinder. It will provide you with the most unique suggestions related to your niche. You can not only get some low-competition, high-search rate keywords, but you can also find out how easy or difficult it will be to rank for that keyword.
KW Finder shows multiple suggestions for a single keyword. You can use it to find search volume, CPC, PPC, and keyword difficulty. Here is a quick chart for different difficulty levels.
Now, Let’s say I have an online store featuring kids’ clothing and I need a keyword to use in my product title. However, if I search on Google for the keyword kids’ clothing, there are bigger brands in the top-ranking position, like Kohl’s and Carters. It is hard to compete for kids’ clothing. So, I put the phrase into the KWFinder tool.
You can see that it is pretty hard to rank and will require quite some time to appear on the first few pages of search engines.
So, I will use an alternative keyword – newborn clothes (this keyword is both easier to compete with and has high search volume). Therefore, you can use this keyword in your product title and description.
Next, to make the ranking easier, I will say look for a long-tail keyword (a keyword with 2-3 words). Long-tail keywords rank better on search engines, but when you add it to the title, make sure it reads naturally.
2. Improve store navigation
User experience is one of the most important ranking factors. While it doesn’t directly contribute to your ranking, it provides signals that are further used for your SERP.
A good UX is when a user is able to navigate your site with ease. One way to make it happen is by using the hierarchy structure to organize your products. You can create a primary menu with products divided into categories and subcategories.
One example of categories in the main menu is Taylor Stitch. When you click on the shop, it will show you a list of categories available in the store.
A more sophisticated example of category-wise taxonomy is Amazon. There you can navigate at the sub-category level under each department section – Men’s fashion > Clothing > Shirts > T-Shirts.
Now, Shopify has three things that ease navigation: collections (grouped using product conditions, i.e. tags), categories, and subcategories.
Collections – Collections can be accessed through the left sidebar Products > Collections. This option allows you to group similar products, making it easier for customers to find them by category.
For instance, if you have 5 different types of shoes and 5 different types of shirts, you can group them together under Shoes and Shirts, respectively. Now, if you have 5 different types of shoes for men and women, you can create separate collections for men’s shoes (subcategory) and women’s shoes (subcategory).
To add your products to a collection, they must have tags. So, if you want to have 5 pairs of shoes appear under the shoe collection, you must tag them all with ‘shoes’. For ease, you can do it directly via the bulk editor from ALL PRODUCTS.
After creating a collection, simply head over to Online store > Navigation and add your collection to the main menu. So, if you’ve created a shoe collection, click on add item on the navigation menu and add the shoe collection.
For adding sub-categories, add men’s shoes and women’s shoes as new items and drag and drop them just below the shoe categories. Make sure that you slide them a little towards the right so that they appear as sub-categories and not as another category.
You can also add multiple variables if you have hundreds of products and set up search filtering. If you want a filter sidebar that looks stylish, you can use the Product Filter & Search app.
3. Connect the Google Search Console and submit a sitemap
The third step on my “how to do SEO for Shopify” guide is – Google Search Console connectivity. Google Search Console is a free service offered by Google to help you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your website or online store.
3.1 Connecting Shopify with Google Search Console
Connecting your Shopify store with Google Console will help you keep track of every technical and non-technical aspect of your website. For doing this, head over to the GSC page.
You can either verify your site via the domain method or the URL method. The first one will watch both the HTTP and the HTTPS versions of your site. Go to Online store > Domains > Manage domains > DNS Settings > Add a custom record > TXT record and copy paste the record to the txt value and under the name section put @ and save, then click on verify.
Sometimes it might take a day or two to verify your domain. Alternatively, you can use the below video for verifying your domain using the URL method.
3.2 Submitting a sitemap for your Shopify store
You can easily submit your sitemap from GSC once your store is verified. All Shopify stores automatically generate a Sitemap.xml file. This file helps Google bots crawl your website and show it on search engines. To view your sitemap, simply add “sitemap.xml” after your domain name.
https://yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml
For adding a sitemap, go to the sitemaps section on GSC and submit this URL. Don’t forget to replace the domain name in the above URL with your own domain name.
4. On-page optimization
On page optimization is a part of SEO that marketers are using from a long time, and it still works.
4.1 Optimize your product page
SEO is about optimizing your store to appear better on search engines. This means you need to make it useful to both customers and Google bots.
To do this, you need to optimize your product page. Start by adding a keyword with a high search rate in your title. Try to add it as the first two words of your title. For instance, if you sell kids’ clothing and your keyword is newborn clothing, your title can be newborn clothing handmade T-shirt.
Next, add multiple images for your products and add alt text for each. Alt attributes help the search engine to know what your image is about. Use unique optimized product titles and high-quality images.
When you write your product description, make sure that it clearly describes everything about your product and optimize it for the targeted keyword. Using it 2-3 times will be fine, but do not over-optimize.
Lastly, add a product review option just below the product page so your customers can publicly offer valuable feedback.
4.2 Create a rich snippet
Along with many other factors, CTR also helps Google decide the SERP and affects the conversion rate of your store. Write copy in your meta title and meta description, and embed keyword at least once in your meta.
Additionally, you can add ratings along with your meta description (also known as rich snippets). Rich snippets have higher conversion rates and will also help you know more about the product. You can easily find an SEO app from the Shopify app store and add a rich snippet.
5. Set up social media pages
Social media pages help with SEO. There is correlation between social signals with Google ranking factors. Setting up social media profiles will also help you generate more traffic and spread brand awareness.
Create social media pages on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. The good thing is, you don’t need to individually design or resize your logo and timeline image. You can use Shopify’s free logo maker to create logos with multiple resolutions.
6. Improve and optimize performance
The first thing your visitor will notice is your landing page. You can use the Shopify stock photo library to get eye-catching images for your online store.
Next, make sure that you optimize your store for performance. Here are a few quick pointers to speed up your website:
- Optimize product images – Use the JPEG image format instead of PNG. They take up less space. Next, you can either optimize your images manually before uploading with TinyPNG or install a Shopify app like Crush pics to handle the optimization from the store end.
- Use a fast Shopify theme – A Shopify theme isn’t something you necessarily need to change, but if you don’t want any loose ends, you can either customize your theme and remove some functionality or buy a new Shopify theme like Fastest.
- Add a CDN service – A content delivery network (CDN) is a region-wise distributed group of servers that reduces the content loading time and offers a faster loading product page. You can use a free CDN service like Cloudflare for your Shopify store.
- Shopify caching – Using a Shopify cache app will speed up your store and improve performance. The cache is a temporarily stored version of files at a location that makes it easier to access the data quickly.
Along with the above, you can also remove some non-essential Shopify apps. Installing a lot of Shopify apps could affect your site speed to an extent.
If none of these options help much, try JavaScript and CSS minification.
7. Improve your backlink profile
It’s no secret that good quality backlinks help boost your SEO and help your site appear better on search engines, but the more important thing is to generate backlinks naturally. You can reach out to popular blogs around your niche and offer giveaways for your product in exchange for a genuine review.
You can also publish guest-o-graphics (guest posts with infographics) to promote your store on various websites.
Another great way to build backlinks is by using content marketing. Starting a blog will help you boost traffic and generate more leads. You can easily create a blog on your Shopify store, but if you want to look less promotional, use WordPress for starting a blog.
WordPress will help you create more sophisticated content pages with dynamic functionality. Create high-quality useful posts that help attract more links. You can use statistics, listicles, case studies, and similar content to build backlinks for your store.
8. Check for other SEO problems
Broken links or improper redirection can affect your site structure and ranking. If you have posted a page, say for demo purposes, and then you remove the page, you will get a 404 error.
While a 404 is not harmful, it can certainly affect user experience. In some cases(when a page is low-quality and serves no use), Google often makes the page a soft-404, which signals the bots to no longer crawl that particular URL.
To fix this, use Broken Link Master or any other Shopify app to detect and redirect broken links to a similar post or product page. If you don’t have anything similar, redirect it to your homepage.
Duplicate pages are another SEO concern that can reduce your ranking and even remove your listing from search engines if you are hit by a plagiarism penalty by Google. So, if you have duplicate content such as the same descriptions or product images, you need to fix it. The best way to remove this Shopify SEO issue is by updating product pages and posts with unique content.
But if that’s not possible for whatever reason, use rel=”canonical” tag. This tag tells Google that this URL is the master copy of the page. Typically, if you have two different pairs of sports shoes with the same description and you place them in Collections, Shopify will automatically do the SEO canonicalization. If that doesn’t happen, you can add each pair manually via the theme.liquid file on your Shopify dashboard using <link rel=”canonical” href=”{{ canonical_url }}” />
Responsiveness is another important thing to check, especially if you are using a custom theme. Test to ensure that your store is responsive, i.e. mobile-friendly.
9. Design your Visual Brand aesthetics
Creating a personalized visual aesthetic is one of the most important aspects of an online store. A store that appeals have much more sales than a store with a boring, free theme. If you are looking to update, refresh, or re-brand your boutique, creating a visually unique design for engaging your audience is a must. For instance, the PINTEREST feed creates great buzz using just the visual content.
From SEO prespective, it will reduce the bounce rate, improve the customer’s interaction and will also affect the overall revenue to an extent.
The product images, value proposition (landing page) and product pages should look visually appealing, and reflect your niche to an extent.
For creating your brand’s visual aesthetic create your board/ page and keep it aspirational, creating your dream brand.
You know how they say every brand has a unique story to tell, well that’s true, but not all brands can go on podcasts and interviews to share their stories. Therefore, you need to make a brand that speaks for itself. Stay true to your brand and ask yourself if the piece you designed reflects your brand? You can use stock images from Shopify Burst.
If you have a fashion store, look for top fashion brands online and the design they are using on their website. To understand niche-specific visual aesthetic, here’s an example from Urban Outfitters
It is a minimalistic online store, designed with a lot of white space. Their pages reflect the type of clothing they sell and reflect their brand aesthetics, i.e. what their brand is about.
You can experiment different logo designs and think about which type of design will suit the best, based on the products you are selling.
How to select the best Shopify SEO apps for your store?
To pick the most useful Shopify SEO apps from the above list, you necessarily need to consider the existing issues of your store. Besides, weighing each app’s pros and cons is a good way to know which one works best for your site.
As we mentioned earlier, SEO is an inevitable part of driving organic traffic to your online store. So be patient and make sure that the Shopify apps you choose are the ones that you actually need.
Not sure where to find the best suppliers for your Shopify store, checkout my top picks-
| Contributed by Avada team – Ellie Tran is a content creator at Avada Commerce. She loves watching movies, baking and traveling. She always desires to learn more about marketing, especially content marketing, to gain helpful skills and knowledge. |
