7 Easy SEO Shopify Pre-Launch Tips
While Shopify websites are search engine-friendly, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are search engine optimized as soon as you create them. In other words, there’s a certain amount of behind-the-scenes work that you’ll have to do to make your new Shopify website show up high in Google search results. Launch your store on the right foot by implementing these 7 quick and easy SEO tips:
Tip #1: Know your keywords
Not all keywords are created the same. Your goal should be to target several keywords on your site that are specific enough to describe what you are selling on Shopify, but not so specific that people aren’t actually searching for those terms on Google. It can be a delicate balancing act, but one secret is to use a website like www.keywordtool.io to find keywords that aren’t overly competitive. You can also use the official Google Keyword Tool: www.google.com/adwords.
Tip #2: Build relevant content and use your keywords throughout your content
If you are carefully choosing keywords based on what people are actually searching for, then you should be sprinkling in those keywords throughout your website. Makes sense, right? However, you don’t want to overdo it – Google will actually penalize you in search results if it thinks you are gaming the system by having an unrealistically high keyword density on your site.
Tip #3: Submit your sitemap to Google after you launch your store
Your sitemap is literally a coded map of your site, showing Google where to find the most relevant information. This is a very standard function, and there are plenty of tools to help you do this within seconds.
Tip #4: Use Google Search Console
Google provides plenty of tools to help you optimize your site, and one of the most important is the Google Search Console. At a glance, you can see which search queries are resulting in the most traffic, which websites are linking to you, and even how well your website is performing on mobile vs. desktop.
Tip #5: Setup a blog area on your website
Google likes to see that a website is being continually updated on a regular basis, and one easy way to do this is via a blog. With Shopify, you can very easily add a new blog to your website where you can keep customers updated with new product launches, new promotions and new information about your company.
Tip #6: Create your H1 Tag
This is where you might need the help of a website developer or Shopify guru. Unless you already have experience with HTML coding, it might be difficult or overly complex to tweak the actual HTML code that defines your website. The H1 Tag is an important piece of information that alerts Google to the most important information on your page – you can think of it as highlighting or putting into bold font the most important information on your Shopify website.
Tip #7: Don't forget to add Alt Text to all your images
Alt Text, also known as the Alt Tag, is simply a way for Google to understand the type of content found in your website’s product images. If you have a large gallery of products for sale, adding Alt Text is one easy way to help Google index all of that information more efficiently.
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Looking for an expert to implement these steps? If you need help with SEO for your new Shopify site, reach out to our experts at Hopatoo. You can email us at: hello@hopatoo.com
