Ecommerce SEO: Guide For Ranking On Shopify

"You can't just open a website and expect people to flood in. If you really want to succeed, you have to create traffic." This is a famous statement from the CEO of Walmart, Joel Anderson, regarding the importance of lead generation strategies for your website.

There are many ways to create traffic to your website, but one of the most effective is through search engine optimization or SEO. This is especially relevant to eCommerce websites or online stores. In fact, according to RebootOnline, Google organic search accounts for at least 43% of all e-commerce visits.

Ecommerce SEO, with a correlation to creating more leads, also increases sales and income. A survey shows that 23.6% of e-commerce purchases are directly related to organic traffic. While leads generated by search engine optimization result in 14.6% successful transactions.

If you are a Shopify owner ranking your online store should be an essential part of your marketing plan. Let's dive deeper into how you can optimize your website. These eCommerce SEO tips will help you rank your online store on Shopify;

#1. Conduct a Keyword Research

Keyword research is a vital step in any SEO campaign. It helps you understand what your potential customers are looking for so that you can create content that meets their needs. Many free tools are available online to help with keyword research, like Google Keyword Planner and Ahrefs Keyword Explorer.

Thorough keyword research can help you optimize your pages, such as,

Title

Page titles are the first thing visitors see on your page. It should convey information about your product so that users can easily identify its relevance to their query. A good title should be descriptive, include keywords related to the products you're selling, and reflect your brand voice.

Meta Descriptions

These are the text snippets that appear below your title in search results. They are essentially a summary of your page and should be written in a way that draws people to click through to your site. It can also be used as a call-to-action button for users who want to learn more about your products or services.

Product descriptions

Descriptions are information about your product, its features, specifications, and benefits, - which should be written in concise detail. Note that not all users will read these descriptions; most only scan the first few lines before deciding whether or not to click on your link. As such, it's a good idea to include keywords related to your products to improve search engine rankings.

Website URL

The website URL is your address or the location of your site on the internet. It's important that this is easy to read so that users can easily remember your site when they're ready to make a purchase.

#2. Create Social Media Accounts for Your Online Store

Social media is another important aspect of your online presence. You should create social media accounts for your website and post updates regularly to promote new products, sales, and other news related to your store. You can also use social media to interact with customers and answer questions about your products.

#3. Make Use of Videos and Animations

Videos will compromise 82% of internet traffic by the end of 2022. This is a huge factor in the eCommerce industry, and you should use this to your advantage. You should use videos on your website to promote your products, give tutorials on how to use them, and answer common questions about your store. You can also create an animated video that explains how using your product or service will benefit customers.

There is a lot of eCommerce website which already successfully integrated video into their store. Ariat International, a leading apparel and accessories brand, reported a 160% conversion rate increase with the use of product videos.

#4. Design an XML Sitemap for Your Shopify Website

Sitemaps are XML files used for indexing and navigation. They help search engines find all the pages on your website, as well as update their index with new content. The better your sitemap is, the easier it will be for Google to crawl your site. You can create an XML sitemap using Google Search Console.

#5. Post High-Quality Content

Content marketing is another way to improve your Shopify ranking. Posting high-quality, informative and helpful content attracts readers to your website. It also encourages another website to link to your Shopify website, thus increasing your authority. You can create content by blogging, creating videos, or curating other people's content. Experts at Visibility Gurus say that implementing a consistent content marketing strategy not only boosts your visibility but also establishes your brand as an authority in your niche.

Repost User Generated Content

Aside from creating your own content, reposting user-generated content also gain more leads for your website. User-generated content is videos, images, or posts created by your customers. This type of content is valuable because it shows that people trust your brand and products.

Promote with Reviews and Testimonials

Reviews and testimonials, just like UGC, are content from your valued consumers. Reviews and testimonials are powerful because they give credibility to your brand. They also provide social proof that can help build trust among new visitors. Customer reviews allow you to show off the good things people have said about your products or services.

#6. Speed Up your Website Load Speed

Did you know that you only have an average of 3 seconds to load your website before your potential customers leave? Data shows that 53% of website visitors abandon a webpage if it takes too long to buffer. At the same time, up to 87% more people abandoned a page after a 2-second loading period delay.

It is also said that the Google algorithm factors page loading speed in ranking a website. This tells us that speeding up your Shopify response time is a must. So how should you do it? Here are three basic tips;

Optimize your Files(e.g., Images and GIFS)

Keep your page size to a minimum by optimizing your files. You can do this by compressing large images and GIFs, reducing their file sizes without losing quality and making them load faster. This can help reduce the loading time of your website since the server won't have as much data to send over the internet.

Use a CDN (Content Delivery Network)

A CDN is a server network that delivers files from your website to visitors. Using a CDN can reduce the distance between your server and the visitor, which helps speed up load times. Shopify has a built-in default CDN, but if you're looking for a third-party CDN provider, you can try Cloudflare or StackPath.

Keep Mobile Users in Mind

According to Statista, three percent of e-commerce website traffic through the desktop computer was turned into sales, while two percent of smartphone visits were converted. Keeping mobile users in mind is as important as desktop users. You can do this by optimizing your website for mobile devices.

When designing a mobile-friendly website, make sure that all your text is legible and easy to read. You should also consider using responsive design, as it will allow your website to resize itself automatically depending on the device being used.

#7. Experiment with Link building (internal and external)

Link building is a technique that businesses use to increase the number of websites that link back to their website. This helps search engines determine how important a website is and can sometimes be the deciding factor in whether or not your website ranks well for certain keywords. Link building can take many forms, including:

• Internal linking: Linking to other pages within your website. This can be done to help users navigate through your site and also helps search engines determine which pages are most important.
• External links: A process of linking one website to another. You can exchange links in your blog posts or write guest blog posts for other websites.

Takeaways

Ecommerce SEO is a complex process, but it's also an immensely rewarding one. It is not just about ranking well on search engine results pages. It's also about ensuring that your customers have a great experience on your site and that they can smoothly find what they're looking for.

If you want to succeed in eCommerce SEO, you need to personalize every page of your website and ensure that it contains engaging titles and responsive images. Let's recap the seven strategies above;

• Conduct thorough research on high traffic keywords
• Create business accounts for your Shopify store on various social media
• Leverage videos and animations
• Design and organize your website sitemap
• Post and repost interesting content
• Reduce your Shopify website loading speed
• Build quality links for your website

By following the guidelines outlined above, you'll be able to optimize your website for search engines and increase your Shopify sales online.