Shopify SEO Checklist

As a robust e-commerce platform, Shopify simplifies the development, management, and growth of online sources. The themes and templates provided by the platform enable merchants to set up customized stores in a short amount of time. At the same time, merchants can boost customer experiences and sales by automating essential e-commerce tasks.

The statistics compiled by Backlinko suggest that Shopify currently runs over 4.61 million online stores across regions. Shopify helps merchants divert and increase online search traffic to these online stores by providing free and premium SEO tools. Likewise, merchants can create, optimize, and analyze content using AI SEO tools.

However, a merchant can make Shopify SEO more impactful by implementing on-page, off-page, and technical SEO tactics. While making a Shopify SEO checklist, he must consider the essential elements in on-page and off-page SEO checklists. At the same time, he must help search engines crawl, index, and understand the pages on Shopify by making a technical SEO checklist.

We are discussing some key components merchants must include in the Shopify SEO checklist to make their online stores rank higher on search engine results pages.

15 Essential Components in Shopify SEO Checklist

Custom Domain

In addition to strengthening the store’s online presence and reputation, a custom domain boosts its search engine visibility. Shopify allows merchants to use the Myshopify.com URL by default. At the same time, it also sells custom domains to merchants. While making a Shopify SEO Checklist, merchants must focus on acquiring a custom domain. However, they can buy domains from either Shopify or other third-party providers.

Responsive and Fast Theme

The loading speed of an online store directly impacts customer experience and visibility. Also, Google recently started crawling websites and online stores using a mobile bot. Hence, merchants must make the online store accessible across devices and platforms by choosing a responsive theme. At the same time, they must ensure that the theme does not impact the website’s page speed score by opting for an SEO-friendly theme.

Web Analytics Tools

Shopify dashboard helps merchants access real-time information about the online store like website traffic source and buyer behaviour. However, merchants must collect additional information by implementing free tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console. After implementing these free tools, they should add Google Analytics tracking code to the Shopify website and submit the Shopify sitemap to Google Search Console.

SEO Apps

As mentioned earlier, Shopify helps merchants automate routine search engine optimization tasks by providing free and paid SEO apps. These SEO apps help users optimize images and content, boost site speed, manage page redirect URLs, and collect product reviews. Also, merchants can use AI SEO tools to craft product descriptions and generate SEO-optimized blog posts. Hence, the SEO checklist must focus on selecting and integrating the right SEO apps from the Shopify App Store.

Keyword Selection

The Shopify SEO checklist must prioritize the selection and prioritization of keywords. While selecting keywords, marketers prioritize words and phrases that are easier to rank. Also, they evaluate keywords using key metrics like keyword difficulty, search volume, and cost-per-click. However, they have to select keywords and keyword clusters for individual products and categories. They drive sales conversions by selecting keywords based on visitors’ transactional intent.

URL Optimization

In addition to selecting a custom domain, merchants must optimize the eCommerce website URL for search engines. For instance, they should include the primary keyword in the URL organically. Likewise, they keep the URL short and simple by removing unnecessary words. The optimization contributes hugely towards making product pages rank higher on SERPs.

Page Element Optimization

While delivering search results, search engines understand content based on key page elements like title and meta description. While optimizing page elements, merchants must restrict the page title to 60 characters and meta descriptions to 160 characters. Also, they should include the primary keyword organically in both the title and meta description. However, they must avoid keyword stuffing by not repeating the primary keyword.

Content Optimization

In addition to writing original product descriptions, merchants must optimize the descriptions for search engines. It is always important to include relevant keywords in the description along with synonyms and secondary keywords. However, merchants must improve on-page Shopify SEO by including each keyword organically. At the same time, they must structure the product page correctly by using H1, H2, and H3 tags hierarchically.

Image Optimization

Merchants usually make product pages more appealing by embedding HD images. Their Shopify SEO checklist must focus on optimizing each image for search engines. While optimizing an image, they must include the primary keyword in the file name and alt tag. In addition, they must follow image SEO tips and best practices shared by savvy digital marketers.

Navigation Menu Optimization

Search engines understand an e-commerce website and its user experience based on the navigation menu. While making a Shopify SEO checklist, merchants must focus on optimizing the website’s navigation menu for search engines. In addition to keeping the navigation menu consistent across web pages, they should organize and categorize products properly. At the same time, they must enable buyers to contact the customer support team directly while navigating the online store.

Internal Link Structure

In addition to improving the e-commerce website’s structure, an internal link structure reduces bounce rates and increases page views. While making the Shopify SEO checklist, merchants must spread the link juice across the website by connecting related content. The network of internal links will make it easier for search engines to crawl, index, and understand web pages. Hence, merchants must strengthen the internal link structure by following internal linking SEO best practices.

Product Schema

Schema markup boosts the search engine ranking of product pages by adding structure to the data. Shopify themes allow merchants to customize and optimize product schema by making changes to the source code. At the same time, merchants can generate optimized product schema markup using Shopify plugins or third-party schema generator tools. However, they must verify the markup to ensure that that schema conveys all important attributes of a product.

Product Reviews

As highlighted by several studies, buyers trust customer-generated content more than brand-generated content. Before buying a product, they evaluate it based on customer reviews and ratings. The Shopify SEO checklist must boost sales conversion by showing reviews posted by previous buyers. In addition to influencing buying decisions, the reviews will appear on SERPs. Merchants can generate and display customer reviews easily using free SEO tools provided by Shopify.

Website Audits

Regular audits help merchants boost Shopify websites’ customer experience and search engine visibility consistently. While auditing a website, they must focus on reviewing its important elements. For instance, they must deliver desired content to visitors by conducting content audits. Likewise, they must strengthen the website’s link structure by conducting link audits regularly. The audits further create opportunities for them to implement the data-driven insights gained using Shopify analytics.

Off-Page SEO Tactics

The Shopify SEO checklist must showcase experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) by including off-page SEO tactics. It should focus on earning high-quality backlinks using commonly used tactics like guest blogging, forum posting, social media promotion, and multiformat content distribution. At the same time, merchants must consider and implement the tactics included in a robust off-page SEO checklist.

Conclusion

In addition to simplifying e-commerce website development, Shopify helps merchants divert search engine traffic to online stores by providing SEO tools. However, merchants must boost Shopify SEO by combining on-page, off-page, and technical SEO tactics. At the same time, they must repeat the tasks or activities in the Shopify SEO checklist while adding new products or pages to the e-commerce website.