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A SHOPIFY MERCHANT’S INTRODUCTION TO SEO AND SEO TOOLS

by Ampify Me May 17, 2023


In this blog, we will cover how you can use SEO tools in maximizing the visibility and success of your e-commerce business. We will be covering the basic points that all Shopify merchants should know.
1. What is SEO and Organic search?
2. What are the Benefits of SEO?
3. Know the steps to your SEO’s.
4. How to use the SEO tools to maximize your ecommerce business?
5. What are the simple truths to SEO?

1. WHAT IS SEO AND ORGANIC SEARCH?

SEO as everyone knows it, stands for search engine optimization. It’s a set of processes aimed at improving your website’s visibility in search engines (such as Google). All with the goal of getting more organic traffic. Essentially, SEO is about fulfilling users’ search needs by creating relevant, high-quality content and providing the best possible user experience. Organic search refers to search results that aren’t paid for. Instead of being organized by Google’s paid ad guidelines (which includes CPC, ad relevance, and many other factors), organic search results are organized by its search engine algorithm. Organic search and SEO go hand-in-hand. SEO brings in organic traffic, which is central to succeeding digitally.

2. WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF SEO?

The importance of SEO is not something to overlook. Search engines employ specific algorithms to direct online traffic from one site or another. Let me point out the key benefits of SEO for Shopify merchants and why it should be an integral part.

  • Enhanced Visibility:
    SEO plays a pivotal role in improving the visibility of your Shopify store in search engine results. By optimizing your website's on-page elements, headings, and content, you can increase your store's rankings on search engine result pages. Higher visibility ensures that your store appears in front of potential customers when they search for relevant products or services.
  • Cost-Effective Marketing:
    Compared to paid advertising channels, SEO offers a cost-effective marketing strategy for Shopify merchants. Unlike paid ads that require ongoing investment to maintain visibility, SEO efforts can have a lasting impact. By consistently creating valuable content, you can drive organic traffic without incurring significant advertising costs.
  • Improved User Experience:
    SEO also focuses on providing a seamless UX. When optimizing your Shopify store for search engines, you inadvertently enhance the overall user experience. Factors such as fast page load times, being mobile friendly and relevant content, all contribute to a positive user experience. This, in turn, leads to lower bounce rates, longer session durations, and increased chances of conversion, as visitors are more likely to trust and engage with a user-friendly website. Incase you need to know more about why speed matters for UX,     click here.
  • Targeted Traffic and Higher Conversions:
    By optimizing your Shopify store for keywords, you highly attract targeted traffic. With SEO, you have the opportunity to connect with an audience that is genuinely interested in your offerings, resulting in higher conversion rates.
  • Long-Term Sustainable Results: 
    As mentioned in the above point, as much as its cost effective, SEO for Shopify merchants is its long-term sustainability. Patience is the KEY. While other marketing tactics( paid) may provide immediate results, they often rely on ongoing investments. In contrast, the efforts you put into SEO by optimizing your website, creating valuable content, and building a reputable and respectful online presence and brand, accumulate over time. Once your store establishes this, it gains visibility and becomes increasingly difficult for competitors to surpass your rankings, giving you a competitive edge.

3. KNOW THE STEPS TO YOUR SEO’s.

Big picture SEO can be broken into 3 buckets:

  • Off-Page SEO:
    This refers to actions taken off your website. Like backlinks and mentions on other sites. Some important tactics to know:
  1. Link Building:
    Acquire high-quality backlinks to identify authoritative websites in your industry, analyze your competitors' backlinks, and track your own backlink profile.
  2. Local SEO (if applicable):
    If you have a local business, optimize your website for local search results. This includes optimizing your Google My Business profile, obtaining local citations, and encouraging customer reviews.
  3. Social media engagement:
    Social bookmarking sites are one of the best platforms to promote your website. When you bookmark your webpage or blog post on popular social bookmarking websites, you gain high traffic to your blog or webpage.
  4. Forum Submissions:
    Participate in search forums which are related to your website and business and make a connection with that community.
  • Technical SEO:
    Ensure your website is technically optimized for search engines. SEO tools can help you identify and fix issues like broken links, duplicate content, page speed, mobile-friendliness, and crawlability.

  • On-Page SEO:
    This refers to everything you do on your own website. Some key tasks in this are:      
  1. Keyword Search:
    This is often the first and may even be the most important step in SEO.     It revolves around finding and researching search terms that your potential audience enter to search engines when they looking for products and services. The idea is of shaping your content to give them what they look for and get a chance to direct those users to your products. Keyword research may be followed by competitor analysis.
  2. Content Creation:
    Create high-quality and engaging content around your target keywords. You goal is to provide value to your user, usually in a simple, easy to digest format.
  3. Optimize On-Page Elements:
    Ensure your websites on-page elements are optimized for search engines. This includes optimizing meta tags( title tags, meta descriptions ) , headings URL’s, and image alt text. Incorporate your target keywords naturally within these elements while maintaining friendliness.
  4. Optimizing Site- Structure:
    Enhance your websites structure and navigation to improve user experience and search engine crawlability. Organize your products into categories and subcategories, use breadcrumbs and create a user-friendly navigation menu. This helps both users and search engines understand the structure of your website. 

4. HOW TO USE SEO TOOLS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR ECOMMERCE BUSINESS?

Using SEO tools can be instrumental in maximizing the visibility and success of your e-commerce business. There are hundreds of SEO tools. Here, we have listed the main ones.

  • Free and Paid SEO Tools:
  1. Google Search Console, lets you monitor and report on your website’s presence in Google SERP. All you need to do is verify your website by adding a code to your website or going through Google Analytics and you can submit your sitemap for indexing.
  2. Google Analytics, is a popular free tool that provides in-depth data about your website.
    It can also give you valuable insights about your audience, including where they’re located, what kind of device they use, and their demographics.
  3. Google’s Keyword Planner , a free tool, is designed for ad campaigns, but you can use it for keyword research by seeing how keywords perform in ads.
  4. Google Trends, a free keyword search tool that goes back to 2004. Sort by categories, country, and type of search. See related topics, popularity by region, newest most frequently searched for terms, and compare to other terms.
  5. Mozcast, a free tool, tracks change big and small to Google’s search algorithm. With Google making hundreds of changes on a yearly basis, keeping abreast of the latest developments helps you make sure you’re doing everything to have the best SERPs.
  6. Ahrefs, having a subscription ranging from 99$- 999$ monthly, is one of the most recommended and best SEO tools online. It’s only second to Google and the biggest competitor to Semrush when it comes to being the largest website crawlers and helps analyze backlinks, keyword research features, keyword competition analysis.
  7. Semrush, a marketing tool like this, it has by far the most loved SEO tool with an expensive subscription of 200$ monthly. One of the most popular features of this SEO tool is the Domain Vs Domain analysis, which allows you to easily compare your website to your competitors. If you’re looking for analytics reports to help you better understand your website’s search data, traffic, or even your competitors, you’ll be able to compare keywords and domains. Semrush outperforms in all three categories: backlink database size, backlink reports and tools, and backlink auditing and building.
  8. Moz Pro, a SEO software tool a pricing of 99$-599$ monthly keeps popping up as one of the best SEO tools that experts actually use. Some specialists raved about how Moz was always up to date despite Google’s regular algorithm changes.
  9. Ubersuggest, developed by Neil Patel, is a free keyword finder tool that helps you identify keywords and also the search intent behind them by showing the top ranking SERPs. Metrics Ubersuggest includes in its reports are keyword volume, competition, CPC, and seasonal trends. Great for both organic SEO and paid PPC, this tool can help you determine if a keyword is worth targeting and how competitive it is.
  10. Yoast SEO, ranges from a free to paid option. It is a plugin for WordPress and only helps to optimize your content and on-page SEO, while Semrush is a standalone cloud-based tool and offers a plenty of more features.
  11. Buzzsumo, a paid and the best SEO competitor research tool to assist with content marketing & influencer research. Also useful for link-building campaigns, and Competitor Analysis.
  • Technical SEO Tools: A few tools are:
  1. Screaming Frog, has a free version and a paid version at $209 per year helps in missing page titles, errors in URLs, missing meta keywords.
  2. Web Developer Toolbar, is an official port of the Firefox web developer extension. One of the primary uses for this extension is identifying issues with code, specifically JavaScript implementations with menus and the user interface.
  3. Majestic, is a long-standing tool in the SEO industry with unique linking insights. Like most tools, Majestic has its own values for calculating technical link attributes like Trust Flow, Citation Flow, and other linking elements contributing to trust, relevance, and authority.
  4. Serpstat, free version, then starts at $69 per month, is also great tool that offers SERP analysis tools.
  • Competitor Analysis: A few tools are:
  1. SpyFu, is a free analysis tool, then starts at $39 per month (or $16 per month on an annual plan). This tool is a very reasonably priced service that is dedicated specifically to competitive research and offers many useful features.
  2. Sandboxweb.io, has a free version, then pricing starts at $19 per month. This tool offers a SERP analysis tool that provides data on top-ranked competitors.
  • Optimize for Mobile Devices:
    With the increasing use of smartphones for online shopping, ensure your e-commerce site is mobile-friendly. Optimize your website's design, layout, and user experience for mobile devices, as this can positively impact your organic search rankings. SEO Tools like Mobile-Friendly Test, Mobile First Index Checker, or even Google Analytics can be useful.

5. WHAT ARE THE SIMPLE TRUTHS TO SEO?

To sum up, let’s look over a few truths to SEO.

  • SEO is not about hacks:
    Don’t get caught in a loop of looking for cool new SEO tricks or hacks. Usually, all you need is to do the SEO basics really well really consistently.
  • SEO is not about cheating Google:
    Instead, think of it as convincing Google to rank your page by showing the value you provide for users.
  • You're never “done” with SEO:
    Search engine optimization is a continuous process. Even if you rank No. 1 for all your keywords, you always need to keep improving. The competition never sleeps.
  • Knowing your audience is key:
    The more you understand your target audience, the easier it is to create an effective SEO strategy.

CONCLUSION:

In the dynamic world of e-commerce, SEO has emerged as a powerful tool for Shopify merchants to boost visibility, drive targeted organic traffic, and increase conversions. By optimizing your store's on-page elements, creating valuable content, and building authoritative backlinks, you can establish a strong online presence, attract the right audience, and achieve long-term sustainable growth. Incorporate SEO into your marketing strategy today, and unlock the full potential of your Shopify store.