Shopify SEO: The Definitive How-To Guide For Beginners

You must have read tons of selling on Shopify guides at this point, and most of them talked about how you should jump straight to Paid Ads to drive traffic and buyers to your store, which is not entirely wrong. If you're on an expert level, you can balance nicely between Income and Advertising cost. However, too often, we found that Organic traffic, and to be more specific, Shopify SEO, is glossed over, despite the fact that SEO has the highest ROI of any marketing strategies. 

Source: Semrush 

 So in this article, we will walk you through the very basics of Shopify SEO - or to put it simply, what you need to do the moment your trial ends and you embark on a serious journey of growing your store, organically. Hence, this Shopify SEO tutorial would be be best for: 

• New Shopify merchants who are building your Shopify stores and learn how to improve SEO on Shopify and grow organic traffic 
• Growth marketers who want to employ innovative methods Shopify SEO optimization and sales growth.

Understand Shopify SEO

If you’re a Shopify store owner looking to increase your online presence, understanding Shopify SEO is crucial.

What is Shopify SEO? 

Shopify SEO (Search Engine Optimization) refers to the practice of optimizing a Shopify store to improve its visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

SEO is crucial for any ecommerce business, including those using Shopify, as it helps drive organic (unpaid) traffic to the store by ensuring that the store's pages are ranked higher for relevant search queries.

How Shopify SEO Differs From Regular SEO? 

There is not much difference between these two SEO methods. Both follow the same principles and set of basic rules. Shopify SEO tactics can also be categorized in the same three buckets: 

• On-page SEO: On-page SEO covers all approaches you use to help search engines better understand and rank your content - which includes making content friendly and useful to your target audience; then optimizing your headings, tags, links so it can also be friendly to search engines. 
• Off-page SEO: Off-page SEO covers all activities carried out on another site or platforms, including, but not limited to Link Building, Social Media, Local citation, landing reviews. 
• Technical SEO: Technical SEO covers all activities that play a deciding role in whether your Shopify store gets indexed by search engines, including: site speed optimization, structured data, canonicalization, hreflang, and more all classes as technical SEO.

Quick read: A Complete Guide On Shopify SEO Checklist

Is Shopify Good for SEO? 

However, when it comes to Shopify SEO, there are several differences, both good and bad: 

With a quick analysis, the Goods outweighed the bad. 

If you’re an SEO expert, you might need to rethink. But as an online store owner, Shopify makes it simple and efficient enough to navigate around lots of SEO's mind-boggling terminologies, and quickly pick up the basics to improve SEO. 

How to Set Up SEO for Shopify Stores? A Step-by-Step Shopify SEO Tutorial 

To set up SEO Shopify, it’s essential to start with the basics. This section will guide you through the initial steps on how to set up SEO for Shopify to ensure your store is SEO-ready. 

Step 01: Setting up Google Search Console and Submit Your Sitemap for SEO Shopify 

Let’s take a look at this detailed tutorial from Shopify to learn how you can set up your Google Search Console, understand Shopify sitemap and how to submit one so that your customers can locate your treasure in the forest of Google search results.

Step 02: Setting up Google Analytics For Shopify Store

To set up SEO Shopify, the next step is check out how to connect eCommerce data from Shopify to Google Analytics to better measure your sales performance and your online store performance.

For more in-depth analysis and tutorials, check out our guide: Shopify Google Analytics Convesion Tracking For Beginners. 

Step 03: Define Your Store Structure

With Shopify SEO, we'd recommend you use Hierarchical model. 

In Shopify, you'll generally use the following page types: 

• Homepage
• Collection Pages
• Product Pages 
• Informational Pages (contact us, about)
• Blog 

The Homepage should be on top of the hierarchy, followed by the main categories (level 1), sub-categories (level 2) and finally the product pages (level 3).

This structure helps you to achieve the 1st golden rule in the site structure: No more than 03 clicks - simply put, potential buyers should be able to find what they're looking for in three clicks or less.

Besides a better navigation experience for users, this 3-click rule allows your Homepage to distribute its authority to all of your major categories and product pages, thus, providing them a better chance to rank highly. 

Source: Kissmetric.com

In addition, you can refer to the 2nd rule: Create a simple menu that replicates the site structure. Menu can be easily managed under Online Stores -> Navigation in your Shopify dashboard. 

Step 04: Perform Keyword research for your Shopify SEO

Keyword research is the very foundation and crucial step in the process of how to set up SEO for your Shopify store. The reason is simple: we Googled in keywords. Thousands of search queries are typed into search engines every second - our job is to find out which one converts! 

Understand search intent 

Search intent refers to the reason behind a user’s search query. Understanding search intent is crucial because it helps you choose keywords that match what your potential customers are looking for. Keywords can be categorized into four main types of search intent:

• Informational: The user is looking for information (e.g., "how to choose a running shoe").
• Navigational: The user is looking for a specific website (e.g., "Nike official site").
• Transactional: The user intends to make a purchase (e.g., "buy running shoes online").
• Commercial Investigation: The user is comparing options before making a purchase (e.g., "best running shoes 2024").

Keyword research tools for Shopify SEO 

1. Aliexpress 

Head-to-head with Amazon, Aliexpress is one of the biggest eCommerce sites, and also a goldmine of keywords. To tap into its potential, first head over to Aliexpress, enter a keyword that describes your products and check the suggestions. 

The suggested keywords are often long-tail keywords, which tends to have a clearer buying intent, convert better and have lower competition. 

This tactic can be easily replicated on Amazon as well! 

2. Answerthepublic

Answer the public is a great tool to explore long-tail keyword ideas. Head over to Answerthepublic.com, enter your broad keyword (dog toys). 

Wait for a for minutes, and get access to a bountiful of long-tailed keywords that can be used for your blog pages, or for your product pages. 

3. Keywordtool.io

Similar to Answerthepublic, Keywordtool.io helps you explore long-tail keyword ideas. Free plan is available, but you'd need to upgrade to see more details, like search volume and keyword difficulty. 

Keyword selection tools

The above approaches should help you get plenty of keyword ideas for your Shopify store - the next question is What keyword should you select? 

To decide it, use these 02 main criteria: Search Volume and Keyword Difficulty. 

• Search volume tells you how many people have used a specific search query. 
• Keyword difficulty tells you how competitive that keyword is. 

So the ideal approach is that we'd want to target keywords having medium to large search volume, and medium to low competition. We'll introduce how you can get access to these data

1. Google Keyword Planner 

Google Keyword Planner is a built-in tool in Google Ads, you’d need to create a Google Ads account to get access to it - which should take you just a few minutes, plus, it's a free tool - so why not? 

After logging in, you have two options: You can explore more keyword ideas (whose functions are similar to those of Keywordtool.io) or to get search volume data of your selected keyword. 

Since we’re talking about how to select a keyword, head to option 2: 

You can either enter your keywords, or put all of your keywords in a CSV file and upload it onto the search box. 

 2. Ahrefs Keyword Explorer

Ahrefs is an SEO software suite that provides tools for keyword research, link building, rank tracking and many more. The pricing can be a bit too high for new Shopify store owners, but I can tell it's worth every cent! 

Let see how we can use Ahrefs Keyword Explorer to determine which keywords can help you grow sales? 

First, head over to Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, enter your keywords or upload a CSV file containing all keywords. 

You'll get a detailed report including Keyword difficulty, Search volume, and a list of your direct competitors who are also ranking for that keyword. 

If you want to get really technical about keyword research, check out this tutorial from Ahrefs themselves: Keyword Research guide for beginner.

Selecting Keywords for Your Shopify Store

When selecting keywords, focus on those with high search volume and low competition. Long-tail keywords, which are more specific and usually longer than common keywords, can be particularly effective for driving targeted traffic to your store.

On-Page Shopify SEO for Beginners: A Detailed Guide

Before we dive in, check out this summary of a perfectly optimized ecommerce product page: 

Source: Semrush 

Read more: How To Make Your Product Pages SEO-Friendly [Tutorials]

On-page SEO refers to the optimization of individual pages on your Shopify store to rank higher on SERPs. This section covers the essential on-page Shopify SEO for beginners.

Product Page URL 

A simple rule to follow: 

The URLs of your Product pages should be short, easy to scan and contain your focus keyword. This is really important to optimize Shopify SEO for beginners. 

While it is true that Google, or any other search engines, prefers short URLs, Shopify’s built-in SEO capacity also helps you canonicalize your product pages - to put it simply, it tells Google which version of your product page is the primary version.  

So you can rest assured that Shopify makes your URLs look good in the search engine’s eyes. 

Quick read: How to Optimize the Product Page SEO for Your Shopify Store?

Title 

Naturally, you want to include your focus keyword in the Title tag, whether it's a product page or a blog page. 

But that's also what everyone is doing. To take it to the next level, you'd need to: 

• Add emotion-triggering, click-magnet words: Buyers are human too :) they are influenced by powerful words like X% off, Free Shipping, Guarantee. 

These click-magnet words help you increase your CTR, a higher CTR = more clicks = more sales. Quick math! 

• Be mindful of the length of characters: The Title tag should be less than 70 characters, while your meta description should be less than 320 characters. 

Check out how Shopify SEO built-in tool makes it much easier for you to edit Page Title and Description. 

Meta description

Similar to the Title tag, Meta description should have less than 320 characters (as indicated in Shopify SEO section), including focus keyword, related keywords and product features. 

Now this is where most SEO beginners got it wrong - by cramming keywords into the meta description - in fact, it won't help at your SEO at all. Your meta description should be: 

• Contain power keyword: Try now, Get it now, Buy now, Sales off 
• Be descriptive - tell audience what to expect 

Why? A persuasive copy helps your page get more clicks, and a higher CTR tells Search Engines about the attractiveness of your page - playing effects in climbing to a higher ranking. 

PRO TIP 1: Now, Shopify SEO built-in tool shown above, without a doubt, is pretty handy to most SEO beginners. Unfortunately, the configuration was a bit outdated - Google no longer counts Title tag and meta description in the number of characters, it uses pixels instead. So how do you get the perfect SEO title and meta tag for your Product Pages? 

Use this tool as an additional resource when crafting your Shopify SEO copies: 

Source: HigherVisibility

Simply enter your Title, Meta and URL, and get an accurate SERP simulator to see if your Title or Meta are chopped off where it matters! As you can see, the Title should be under 560 pixels, URL should contain less than 560 pixels and META tag should be 990 pixels. 

PRO TIP 02: It's easy to get lumbered with writing title tags and meta tags for your product pages, especially when you have hundreds of pages. How can you make it easier? By spying on Google Ads results of that keyword! 

Head over to Isearchfrom.com, enter your keyword, choose your Language, Country and Device. 

Source: I Search From

In an instance, you can see all Google Ads results, plus organic results for your keyword. The 1st Google Ads results are often the ones with the best Click-through-rate, which means you can take them as the standards, or inspiration to write your own copies. 

Body content 

Most category pages or product pages get straight to the products with no introduction — which isn’t good for User experience, and for Search Engines. 

You should aim for at least a 300-word intro with your keyword included at least 2-3 times. (But don’t stuff it in there — make it flow and look natural.)

After that, you can use User-generated content, especially Product Reviews to rank for more keywords and increase conversion rate probabilities. Check out this example for Solo Stove where they masterfully combine Long-form content, Video content, Product Reviews and Excellent product usability wrapped up in a nice design. 

To sum up, check out this format from Bigcommerce.com 

Source: BigCommerce

Learn more about how to design a rocking product page with PageFly's Ultimate Guide to eCommerce Product Page Design. 

Image ALT 

Google can’t read images, they rely on alt text to know what it’s about which provides you another opportunity to include your keyword on the page, but only if it's relevant. 

Keyword cramming is never good, whether in Page content, or in Image ALT. Write ALT text like you're describing the images to a visually-impaired person. 

Internal link building 

So we've been talking about general SEO tactics that can be applied for both Product Pages and Blog Pages - but which one should you focus on? How can you make your Shopify SEO efforts systematic, and especially, scalable. 

Internal links also aid the flow of PageRank around your site. To put it simply, the more internal links a page has, the higher it’s PageRank. However, it’s not all about quantity; the quality of the link also plays a vital role.

Here’s a simplified view of how PageRank works, published by Ahrefs:

Source: Ahrefs 

Now this is one of the simplest methods when it comes to internal link building, but since we're covering all the basics, let start with it

1. First, repeat step 04 - Perform Keyword Research. Put all of your keywords in a Google Excel file - separating Informational & Navigational keywords, from Commercial Intent Keywords. 
2. Use Informational and Navigational to create blog posts, and use Commercial Intent keywords for your Product pages. 
3. You link your SEO-optimized blog posts to the relevant SEO-optimized product pages.

Remember that the relevancy and quality of internal links  are far more important than the number of internal links. 

How to Build Backlinks for Shopify SEO

Backlinks are links from other websites to your Shopify store. They are crucial for SEO because they signal to search engines that your site is trustworthy and authoritative. Here’s how to build backlinks for your Shopify store:

Create High-Quality Content

Creating high-quality, valuable content is one of the best ways to attract backlinks. Here are some content ideas that can help you earn backlinks:

• Blog Posts: Write informative and engaging blog posts relevant to your products or industry.
• Infographics: Create visually appealing infographics that provide valuable information and encourage sharing.
• Guides and Tutorials: Develop comprehensive guides or tutorials related to your products. These can be highly shareable and link-worthy.

Reach Out to Influencers and Bloggers

Connecting with influencers and bloggers in your industry can help you earn backlinks. Here’s how to do it:

• Identify Relevant Influencers: Find influencers and bloggers who are relevant to your industry and have a strong online presence.
• Build Relationships: Engage with them on social media, comment on their posts, and share their content. Building genuine relationships increases the likelihood of them linking to your content.
• Offer Value: Provide them with valuable content, such as guest posts or exclusive offers, that they can share with their audience.

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging involves writing articles for other websites in exchange for a backlink to your Shopify store. Here’s how to get started:

• Find Guest Blogging Opportunities: Look for blogs in your industry that accept guest posts. You can use tools like Google search or platforms like MyBlogGuest.
• Pitch Your Ideas: Reach out to blog owners with well-crafted pitches that outline your proposed topic and how it will benefit their audience.
• Write High-Quality Content: Ensure your guest posts are well-written and provide value to the readers. This increases the chances of the blog owner linking back to your store.

Top 5 Popular Apps To Optimize Shopify SEO For Your Store  

Optimizing SEO for your Shopify store can dramatically boost your visibility in search engines and attract more organic traffic. Here are the top 5 popular apps to optimize Shopify SEO for better rankings and performance:

SearchPie SEO & Speed Optimizer

This app is a comprehensive tool for monitoring and improving your Shopify store’s SEO. Plug in SEO automatically checks for common SEO issues like broken links, missing meta tags, and slow page speed. It also provides actionable suggestions for fixing these issues, making it an excellent choice for beginners and experts alike.

Outstanding Features:

• SEO Analysis and Optimization: Provides a comprehensive SEO audit with actionable insights to improve on-page SEO elements such as meta tags, headings, and content structure.
• Page Speed Optimization: Enhances page load speeds by optimizing images, scripts, and other site elements to provide a better user experience.
• Structured Data Support: Adds structured data to product pages to improve visibility in search results and potentially enable rich snippets.
• Automated SEO Tasks: Automates routine SEO tasks like generating meta tags and alt texts, saving time and ensuring consistency across your store.

Reviews and Ratings:

SearchPie has a 4.9-star rating, with users commending its dual functionality in improving both SEO and page speed, making it a versatile tool for Shopify merchants.

Pricing:

Offers a free plan with essential features, while premium plans start at $39 per month, providing access to advanced SEO and speed optimization tools.

Best Used For:

Best for merchants looking for an all-in-one app that can handle both SEO optimization and speed enhancement, providing a comprehensive solution for improving site performance.

SEO Manager

SEO Manager helps Shopify merchants improve their search engine rankings by providing tools for meta tag editing, keyword suggestions, and SEO audits. It also features a user-friendly dashboard that offers real-time insights into your SEO performance, helping you adjust your strategy as needed.

Outstanding Features:

• Bulk editing of meta titles and descriptions.
• Integration with Google Search Console for sitemap management.
• 404 error detection and redirection.
• JSON-LD schema for rich results.
• Mobile optimization and Google results simulation.

Reviews and Ratings:

With a rating of 4.7, this app is highly rated for its ease of use and the variety of features that help users track SEO performance.

Pricing: 

Free trial available, with pricing starting at $9/month.

Best Used For:

Beginner to intermediate Shopify users who need an all-in-one SEO solution with guidance and actionable insights.

AVADA SEO Suite

AVADA SEO Suite offers a complete package to optimize on-page SEO, including image alt texts, structured data, and sitemap management. It simplifies the SEO process for both small and large stores.

Outstanding Features:

• Alt text optimization for images.
• Automatic Google structure data (rich snippets).
• Weekly SEO reports and Google Search Console integration.
• Meta tag management for better ranking.

Reviews and Ratings:

With a rating of 4.9, this app is praised for its detailed SEO analysis and ease of use, especially for users looking to improve both speed and SEO​.

Pricing:

Free plan available, with a premium version starting at $34.95/month​

Best Used For:

Stores that require advanced SEO analysis and want to streamline their SEO efforts across product listings and image optimization.

TinyIMG SEO & Image Optimizer

Page load speed is a critical factor for SEO, and TinyIMG helps you by compressing images to reduce loading times without sacrificing quality. It also provides tools to automatically generate alt texts and JSON-LD structured data, ensuring your site is fast and well-optimized for search engines.

Outstanding Features:

• Image Compression: Automatically compresses images without losing quality, significantly improving page load speeds.
• Alt Text Optimization: Adds relevant alt text to images automatically, which is crucial for image SEO and accessibility.
• Image Resizing: Resizes images to the optimal size for your store, ensuring fast loading times across all devices.
• Broken Link Management: Detects and helps fix broken links on your site, improving overall site health and user experience.

Reviews and Ratings:

TinyIMG receives a 5-star rating on the Shopify App Store, with users praising its simplicity and effectiveness in improving page load speeds and optimizing images.

Pricing:

TinyIMG offers a free plan with basic features, while premium plans start at $14 per month, providing more comprehensive image optimization tools and additional SEO features.

Best Used For:

Ideal for Shopify stores with a large number of product images that need to be optimized for faster loading times and better SEO performance.

SEO Booster – SEO Marketing

SEO Booster is a powerful, all-in-one SEO tool that automatically scans your store for optimization opportunities. It helps you fix errors, optimize keywords, and create a clean sitemap. The app also tracks your ranking performance and provides reports so you can easily monitor improvements.

Outstanding Features:

• Automated SEO Audits: Booster SEO automatically scans your store for common SEO issues and provides actionable insights to fix them. 
• Image Optimization: The app compresses and optimizes images without compromising quality, which significantly improves page load speeds. 
• Meta Tag Optimization: Allows you to bulk edit meta titles and descriptions, ensuring that all product pages are optimized for relevant keywords and have compelling descriptions that attract clicks from search engine results.
• Automatic Alt Text Generation: Automatically generates SEO-friendly alt texts for all images, which helps improve image search rankings and accessibility.
• Structured Data Markup: Booster SEO adds structured data to your pages, making them more likely to appear in rich snippets in search results, which can increase visibility and click-through rates.

Reviews and Ratings:

With a 4.9-star rating on the Shopify App Store, Booster SEO & Image Optimizer is highly regarded for its user-friendly interface and comprehensive SEO tools. 

Pricing:

Booster SEO offers a free plan with essential features for smaller stores and paid plans starting at $39 per month for more advanced SEO tools and image optimization capabilities. 

Best Used For:

This app is best suited for Shopify merchants who are looking for an all-in-one SEO solution that combines both on-page optimization and technical SEO features. 

Conclusion 

In this article, we walked you through the very basics of Shopify SEO and Shopify SEO tutorial. Since this is a beginner's guide, we want to include as many basic learning points as possible, but needless to say, SEO is huge and we can never predict what Google's next update would be. 

So if you're new to building your Shopify store and lacking the budget to implement SEO - creating great content and excellent page experience are your go-to baby steps - as the one thing we consistently mentioned throughout the article is that no matter what, Google loves it when you provide a pleasant experience to users.