If there’s something that would initially come into anyone’s mind when we talk about Shopify, it would be its usability. It is useful for any beginner and business person who wants to create an online store in a short time. However, regardless of how aesthetically pleasing or easy to navigate your Shopify store is, if it’s not optimized for search engines such as Google, you are losing a significant amount of business. For this, SEO is crucial.
SEO might appear to be a complex term that is packed with various elements and techniques that are difficult to understand. But here’s the reality – optimizing your Shopify site doesn’t have to be hard work at all. The following plan will help you improve the SEO of your Shopify store in the next 30 days. Just picture what it will be like if, one month from today, your store begins to feature higher rankings, organic traffic, and sales, all because you invested a few minutes in following these basic yet powerful SEO tips.
Below is a 30-day Shopify SEO master plan of more focused activities that you can carry out or also get someone to help you with because they’re not very complex, but may require technical knowledge. Thus, no matter whether you started your business alone or together with a few friends, all the steps described here are quite easy to put into practice. Also, if necessary, you can always consult or hire Shopify developers, or even Shopify SEO specialists for more professional assistance.
It’s time to turn your store into a traffic magnet? Let’s get started!
Week 1: Optimizing Your Store’s Foundation
This week will be dedicated to the correction of errors and the creation of a stable platform for development.
Day 1-2: Improve Your Store’s Speed
The loading speed of the web page is essential for both SEO and user engagement. If the page of your store takes time to load, users will switch to another website, and the search engine will lower your rankings. Optimize images, declutter additional programs, and maybe try a new, faster theme.
Day 3-4: Optimize Your URL Structure
An important factor that affects SEO results is clean and descriptive URLs. The URL setting for pages is embedded in Shopify, and that is not always friendly. Don’t forget to include the keywords related to your products while personalizing them. For instance, instead of using the URL structure such as “/collections/womens-shoes-001,” use something like “/collections/womens-running-shoes.”
Day 5-7: Perform Keyword Research
It is imperative to understand which keywords their target market uses when searching for products as diverse as theirs. Google Keyword Planner can help them find high-traffic, low-competition keywords. Write down the primary and secondary keywords, and it’s always helpful to have them in mind for further content modifications.
Week 2: Product Page and Content Optimization
Now that you have the basic structure of your store, it is high time to ensure that the product pages and all the textual material on your website are properly SEO-friendly.
Day 8-10: Optimize Product Titles and Descriptions
It is not enough that your product title and description are informative—these have to contain keywords and be creative. Be sure to include your main keywords in your title and in the heading and the opening lines of your content description. But don’t go overboard—as you want to keep the flow of writing as natural as possible. Also, opt for bullet points to make descriptions easier to read.
Day 11-12: Add Alt Text to Images
The use of alt text is one of the things that frequently remain unnoticed in SEO. Information about your images is priceless; it tells search engines what is in the picture and helps you rank in image searches. Look through all the images currently uploaded to your store’s page and provide a brief relevant description along with relevant keywords in the alt text field. For instance, if you are selling running shoes for women, your alt text could be Women’s flexible running shoes for exercising.
Day 13-14: Create Engaging Blog Content
Who wouldn’t want an instant way of improving their search engine ranking? Post blogs that can fit into categories frequently asked by the target market. Include the keywords around which you conducted your research, nonetheless, the content has to be interesting and informative. Try to write at least one blog post this week and also promote it on your social media pages.
Week 3: Technical SEO and Backlinks
After finalizing the content creation, it is time to examine some of the technical aspects of Shopify SEO.
Day 15-16: Submit an XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap is essentially a blueprint of your site that aids search engines in crawling it. Shopify has the functionality of creating a sitemap for your store, but you have to manually submit the sitemap to Google Search Console. This also enables Google to crawl your site more aggressively and comprehensively.
Day 17-18: Fix Broken Links
Bad or ‘broken’ links are highly detrimental to SEO as they can send out the wrong signals to search engines and create a poor user experience. When such a link is spotted, you need to change it or completely delete it.
Day 19-21: Start Building Backlinks
External links or links from other websites to your website are one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization. This basically means that the more quality backlinks you have, the more authoritative your site looks. Look for bloggers, influencers, and industry-specific sites and forums where you might contribute a guest post or get your product reviewed. Another way of getting backlinks naturally would also be to share infographics that other people can share on social media or to share valuable resources.
Week 4: Fine-Tuning and Tracking Progress
Now that you are in the last few days of the 30-day plan, it is time to make some changes and begin monitoring your progress.
Day 22-23: Set Up Google Analytics and Search Console
Have you done that? Make sure that Google Analytics and Google Search Console are set up if they aren’t already. These tools will assist you to monitor the traffic of your store, the ranking of your keywords and other SEO factors. Identify patterns of success and areas that require more attention.
Day 24-26: Optimize for Mobile
Today over 50% of users access the internet using their mobile devices, therefore your Shopify store has to be mobile responsive. Most themes on Shopify are mobile-first optimized, although it can still be helpful to check how your store looks across different devices.
Day 27-28: Leverage Social Media
Post your content blog posts and product pages on your social media pages to gain traffic. The more your posts are active in terms of engagement, the better you are placed to attract backlinks and boost your site.
Day 29-30: Review and Plan for the Future
Congratulations, you have been laying a solid base for your Shopify store for 30 days to rank higher on SEO. But before going further, it is necessary to review the part of the strategy that proved effective, as well as the part that failed to do so. Analyze the overall keyword positions, organic visits, and sales numbers.
Final Thoughts
The fact that you can optimize your Shopify SEO in 30 days should be music to your ears as it brings so much success. By following this master plan, you will lay the strong groundwork for long-term success. If you ever feel like you need help or want to level up your store, seek help from Shopify SEO experts. Such professionals can provide you with the relevant recommendations and assist with the fast growth of your business.
Sandy