A Step-by-Step Guide to Shopify SEO — Grow Your Brand in 2024

Kenneth Oms Mendez

Sep 16, 2024

Getting as much organic traffic to your Shopify business as possible is all about developing a well-rounded marketing strategy. 

More specifically, a robust SEO strategy that aims to optimize both your Shopify website itself and high-quality content that resonates with your target audience.

And a strategy like that, unfortunately, just doesn’t appear out of thin air. 

But it’s absolutely possible with the right guide at your fingertips. 

In this crash course, we’ll usher Shopify brand owners, managers, and marketers through the why, what, and how of Shopify SEO — including specific tactics and tools for growing organic search traffic to increase visibility all while reducing reliance on expensive paid aids. 

Helmets on? Let’s speed ahead. 

Table of content:

• ‍What do we mean when we say Shopify SEO?

• ‍What makes SEO critical for Shopify brands?

• ‍Checklist: How to improve your Shopify SEO (in 5 parts)‍

  • ‍‍‍Part 1: Understanding keywords

  • ‍‍‍Part 2: Creating SEO content

  • ‍‍‍Part 3: Optimizing on-page elements

  • ‍‍‍Part 4: Enhancing your technical SEO

  • ‍‍‍Part 5: Tracking your success‍

• ‍Grow your Shopify website SEO in 2024 — and beyond

What do we mean when we say Shopify SEO?

Let’s briefly revisit the SEO basics to build a solid foundation for the cutting-edge SEO knowledge and tips we’ll cover. 

Many people start their internet searches using search engines like Google or Bing. These search engines rapidly analyze content from websites across the internet. They then compile a ranked list of results to provide the searcher with relevant, helpful information on their search engine results pages (SERPs). 

Search engine optimization (SEO) gives website owners, managers, and marketers a better chance of appearing on the first SERP, where they’re more likely to grab the attention of potential customers. 

When we talk about Shopify SEO in particular, we’re referring to boosting e-commerce SEO on your Shopify business website. Improving your Shopify SEO is one part understanding the ins and outs of the platform and one part using a unique set of best practices to highlight your content and push your brand closer to the top of SERPs. 

What makes SEO critical for Shopify brands? 

SEO is a key piece of the marketing mix for Shopify business. Here are the most impactful reasons why: 

• SEO reduces your reliance on paid ads. This is the best way to lower your blended customer acquisition cost (CAC), which is how much money you spend to obtain customers across various marketing channels. With the cost of paid advertising increasing like, well, everything else, the fact that SEO is “free” aside from the labor that goes into it makes it an ideal way to keep CAC within budget. 

• SEO keeps you top of mind for consumers. Brand awareness and visibility are pivotal in a highly competitive world. It takes several interactions to build recognition before consumers actually begin to engage with a brand. The more you can use SEO to get your name in front of potential customers, the more likely you are to eventually convert and retain them. 

• SEO is the main driver of website traffic and revenue. Research from Wolfgang Digital found that for online businesses, organic visits generated by SEO account for 35% of all traffic — and create 33% of all revenue! This is a higher percentage than any other traffic source (paid search, email, social, etc.). Findings from First Page Sage support this fact, showing that websites that reach the top of the SERPs organically win the vast majority of clicks. 

You can absolutely pay a specialized agency to boost your Shopify SEO. However, when you consider that marketing agency costs can grow as high as $8,000 to pull off an e-commerce marketing strategy, you may be more interested in learning how to tackle the job yourself. 

Luckily, it’s a manageable undertaking — as long as you have the right guidance.

Checklist: How to improve your Shopify SEO (in 5 parts)

This five-part guide is based on OpenStore’s cutting-edge research as well as our hands-on experience running 40+ Shopify brands, gathering learnings from successful Shopify founders along the way. We’ve curated the most impactful tactics you can string together into your own unique strategy to grow organic traffic and revenue.

But before we dive in, here is the best overall tip we can give you to remember throughout: SEO is a long-term strategy. Continuous learning and improvement are the biggest underlying factors in the success of Shopify SEO. Return to this checklist often to audit your site and keep your brand relevant in the face of competition. 

Part 1: Understanding keywords

In SEO, keywords are the terms or phrases your ideal audience uses when searching for a product or service you offer. Naturally, understanding these keywords is core to attracting the attention of your audience and search engines. Here’s how to do that.

First things first: Customer research

It all starts by identifying and getting deeply acquainted with each core group within your target customer audience. This involves developing detailed buyer personas to identify each group’s wants, needs, interests, and online behavior. 

Here’s a detailed guide from Shopify on building out those personas.  

Now, conduct keyword research

Once you’ve understood your customer types, it’s time to dive into the search terms (aka keywords) they use. This is called keyword research. It’s not an overly complex process, but it can have a lot of steps. This guide from Ahrefs is a great place to get started.

Keyword Planner from Google is a free, comprehensive keyword research tool, where you can find the keywords related to your brand, how many searches they get each month, and how difficult they may be to rank for based on their competitiveness. 

Understanding the search intent behind each keyword — whether transactional, informational, navigational, or commercial — can help you further narrow down which keywords you want to target on your website, in product descriptions, and wherever else you create content.

For instance, a transactional search might be "buy sustainable women’s clothing online." That’s a great one to try in your product descriptions. An informational search could be "best sustainable women’s clothing brands," which would make more sense to target in a blog comparing popular clothing brands in your space.

You may have more success focusing on longer search phrases, which can have less competition. For instance, instead of the incredibly competitive "women’s pants" (which would also drive a lot of irrelevant traffic), a brand could target "women’s linen pants made in the U.S."

Part 2: Creating SEO content 

The common phrase “content is king” refers to the importance of creating optimized content to move your website up in SERPs. In this section, we’ll talk about how to do that. 

Place keywords thoughtfully

With your ideal keywords in hand, it’s time to align keywords with specific content types. 

Different pages on your site — product pages, product category overviews, your homepage, and even your blog if you have one — can rank for various keywords. As we described above, blog posts are a great place to zoom in on informational searches while product-focused pages can target keywords that signal purchase intent. 

One thing to remember is to avoid keyword stuffing. Awkward overuse of keywords can harm your SEO, as search engines may perceive it as spammy behavior. 

Instead, you want to use target phrases naturally. With that in mind, write for users first. User-friendly content is more likely to be shared, increasing its visibility. Plus, as search engines get smarter, they get better at identifying human-friendly content that adds value for readers. 

For Shopify brands, the best place to start is with unique, keyword-rich, and informative descriptions for your products. Include FAQs and small details that your target audience is interested in. Think fabric type, fit guide, care instructions, and even the story behind the product.

Build backlinks 

Backlinks, also called inbound or incoming links, direct people from another website to yours. In SEO, these are critical because they signal to search engines that other websites consider your content trustworthy.

A very effective way to build backlinks is by identifying opportunities to trade links with other Shopify business owners. 

For example, look for brands in a similar space to yours that don’t directly compete with you. If you sell sustainable women’s clothing, you could partner up with a business selling sustainable fabrics. You can create content for their website or social media, featuring a link back to your own website, and they can do the same for you. 

There are also many websites that actively seek contributions from guest writers, which may contain backlinks. To find guest posting opportunities, try searching these terms in Google:

• [your niche] + “write for us”

• [your niche] + “contribute”

• [your niche] + “guest post”

Prioritize internal linking 

Internal linking is another key strategy in SEO. It involves creating links between different pages all within your own Shopify website.

The goal here is to link between pages with related content. This helps search engines identify you as an authority on a subject, understand your content, and rank your pages accordingly. Plus, it creates more value for your website users and keeps them engaged with your business. 

For instance, you could link to related products on each product page. If you’re optimizing a blog, link to other articles that explore related topics.

Bonus points whenever you can attach a hyperlink to a phrase the linked content is targeting. For example, when linking to a blog about your locally made women’s clothing, attach the hyperlink to a phrase like “women’s clothing made in the U.S.”

Diversify your content

Search engines favor websites that present information in easy-to-consume formats — and that isn’t just text anymore. From your own Google searches, you’ve probably seen how the search engines highlight different content types, including images, videos, and so on.

To understand the type of content that Google prioritizes for your keywords, the best thing to do is search for them frequently yourself. Use incognito mode on your browser for slightly less personalized results, which will help you see what your audience sees.

The idea here is not to put all your eggs in one basket. In other words, employ a multi-channel strategy. Channels and tactics that complement Shopify SEO particularly well include:

• Content marketing: Creating valuable content is key to attracting and retaining customers. For example, use Shopify’s blogging platform to regularly post high-quality, keyword-rich content. Content types such as how-to guides, product comparison guides, and beyond can provide value to your customers and improve organic performance.
  

• Email marketing and social media: Email can help you build a subscriber base to drive traffic to content on your website. You can also leverage the social media platforms that your target audience frequents.
  

• User-generated content: Encourage customers to share photos and reviews related to your products (you may have to create a rewards system to do this). Embed this content onto your site to create social proof.
  

• Video content: Generate video-based product demonstrations, tutorials, and reviews to enrich the customer experience. If content is king — video content is the emperor, accounting for most of the traffic on the internet in 2024. Embed videos into product pages or blog posts for added SEO value. Remember, search engines love rich, multi-faceted content.
  

• Collaborate: Tapping into the audience of influencers or other brands can significantly expand your reach, boost traffic to your website, and create a whole new stream of quality leads to convert.
  

• Build community: Engage via Reddit, Facebook groups, Discord servers — anywhere your ideal audience hangs out. Avoid overt self-promotion to create a natural traffic stream and drum up some word-of-mouth marketing. When done right, you may discover a devoted customer base.
  

Beef up thin, duplicate content 

Content that doesn’t follow Google’s quality recommendations can negatively impact your SEO on that platform.

This is why it’s important to create detailed, valuable content even on product pages, providing comprehensive information that meets searcher and customer intent.

We tell you this because some of Shopify’s default pages — such as automated vendor, tag, type, and default collection pages — often present thin, duplicate content. The best way to fix these pages in Google is through canonicalization, or deduplication. If you’re tech-savvy, you may be able to follow a guide like this one to warn Google of similar content and help it crawl and index your most high-quality pages. If you don’t feel comfortable with that, a front-end developer — especially one with Shopify experience — will be a great help.

Consider landing pages

It's often challenging to rank near the top of SERPs for a specific product, especially when big players like Amazon and Etsy dominate the top spots. The solution is to create Shopify landing pages. 

A landing page is a single URL covering one topic in depth. By optimizing these pages for lower-competition keywords, you may be able to claim an ideal position in search results. 

Within these landing pages, you can then sneak in links to other products and pages, even those that are tough to rank for directly. Continue optimizing these pages using all the SEO strategies mentioned in this article (such as backlinking, internal linking, and adding value) to help them climb higher in the search results.

Aside from using landing pages to boost brand and product awareness, they can also help you drive casual visitors into your marketing funnel. Of all the places where brands use signup forms to convert visitors into leads, landing pages have the highest conversion rate at 23%. 

Part 3: Optimizing on-page elements 

On-page or on-site SEO is about optimizing other aspects of your website (besides content) to improve its search engine ranking. On-page SEO is more advanced than the content tips we just covered, but less advanced than the actual technical SEO steps we’ll get to next. 

Make the navigation experience delightful 

A well-organized, logically structured navigation makes it easier for search engines and people to understand your Shopify website. Here are key points to remember when setting up your navigation menu on Shopify:

• Give each menu item a title that closely relates to the page it links to.

• Arrange menu items in a logical order that reflects their relationships.

• Make sure every page is accessible through your navigation.

• Ensure that every page is three clicks or fewer away from the homepage. Bury them deeper and neither humans nor search engines will bother to dig for them.

• Edit your navigation via the Navigation page in your Shopify admin panel. 

Boost speed by reducing image size 

Shopify site speed is a huge ranking factor.

Search engines want to offer their users the best possible user experience. So, a fast, user-friendly Shopify site will be rewarded with better rankings, which is pivotal to conversions. A slower website may also experience more bounces. Bounces communicate poor engagement back to search engines, further damaging your search ranking.  

You can test your Shopify website speed with Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

Shopify already leverages a fast, reliable content delivery network (CDN) to ensure that its sites load quickly for users. However, if your site is loading slowly, it’s likely related to images.

Having lots of high-resolution images with big file sizes can slow down your site. Thankfully, Shopify's interface allows you to adjust image sizes (here’s how), and at OpenStore we provide a free image optimization tool to streamline this process further before you upload them to Shopify.

Don’t neglect image alt text 

Shopify uses alt text to describe media items like pictures and videos to search engines and screen readers. It’s an often-overlooked element of on-page SEO. 

Use Shopify’s admin panel to write descriptive, user-friendly, and keyword-rich alt text to describe what can be seen in the media item. For example, instead of “women’s socks” try alt text like "Eco-conscious fabrics make up our high-quality women’s socks created ethically and sustainably in the U.S.” 

As usual, avoid stuffing keywords and aim for a natural description that benefits every type of reader.

Include keywords in page titles and meta descriptions 

Page titles on your Shopify website will appear as title tags in Google, the clickable links on the search engine results page. Meta descriptions are those short bits of content following the title tag, which may further encourage searchers to click on your result. As such, both are extremely valuable in your on-page SEO efforts. 

Here are some strategies for building a winning page title:

• Make sure each title is unique, descriptive, and user-friendly.

• Feature your most important target keywords for the page as early as possible. 

• Keep it to 60 to 70 characters to avoid the shortening many search engines do.
  

For meta descriptions, try these tips:

• Highlight what the reader will gain from clicking. For example, for a product page, tease the product’s unique selling points. 

• Make sure to include relevant keywords, while optimizing readability for humans.

• Write a unique meta description for each page. 

• Use fewer than 320 characters in your Shopify meta descriptions. 

To edit both elements on an individual page, navigate to that page from your Shopify admin. To update it for your business’s overall homepage, visit Online Store > Preferences in your admin.

Part 4: Enhancing your technical SEO

A crucial aspect of achieving great performance in organic search is ensuring the technical aspects of your site are up to par. 

Technical SEO is the process of improving the backend elements of your online. Most of these tips are aimed at improving search engine crawling and indexing. This phase is about helping the search engine’s bots interpret and rank your website’s content. Let’s get to it.

Try product pages, not variants (best for smaller brands) 

Product variants in Shopify describe small differences between otherwise identical items. For example, red and blue may be variants of your sustainable women’s wool socks.

When you use variants in Shopify, the URLs for each variant automatically undergo the canonicalization process we described earlier. This prevents those URLs from indexing, which is helpful to avoid duplicate content but also means those URLs won’t show up in a Google search. So, if a shopper searches for “women’s red wool socks,” your product listing for your red socks isn’t well optimized to show up at the top of the SERP. 

If you have thousands of products and/or variants, using Shopify’s built-in variant feature is probably the best solution. However, smaller brands may choose to create a separate product page for each variant to make it more likely that they rank in searches. 

Make sure your theme uses Schema markup

Most modern Shopify themes incorporate Schema markup, a semantic vocabulary of tags you can add to your code to improve how search engines read and represent your page in SERPs.
Schema markup is a powerful SEO tool because it tells search engines exactly what your data means, not just what it says, leading to more accurate search results and a better chance of reaching your target audience.

One key benefit of Schema markup is that it enables rich snippets. Particularly valuable for e-commerce websites, rich snippets are search results with additional information, such as: 

• Price

• Availability 

• Reviews

• Videos 

• FAQs

Test your product URLs with Google’s Rich Results Test. If your theme does not generate them, you can upgrade to a more modern theme, consider a Shopify app that makes it possible to plug in Schema markup, or follow a guide to add Schema markup on your own. This last option is a pretty technical process, but you can get a website developer to help you if you don’t want to tackle it yourself. 

Submit your sitemap to ensure your site is indexed

For your website to appear in search results, search engines must first index it.

The quickest way to check if your site is indexed is to perform a site search. Type this into Google: “site:yourdomain.com”. If no results appear, your site isn’t indexed. 

To get your site indexed, you need to submit a sitemap, which informs search engines about your site's structure. Shopify automatically generates a sitemap file that lists each individual page of your website. Learn how to find and submit your sitemap to Google by following this Shopify guide.

Keep in mind that indexing can take up to a week after submitting your sitemap. And make sure to remove any password protection from your pages even if you're still working on them. You want to make it as fast and easy as possible for search engines to crawl and index your site.

Upgrade to HTTPS 

Search engines aim to provide a safe browsing experience, which is why they consider whether a site has up-to-date SSL/TLS certification before ranking a website. This certification ensures a site uses HTTPS to keep user and visitor information secure. 

All up-to-date Shopify websites should have HTTPS status, but if you notice your URL starts with “http” instead of “https,” navigate to the Domains page in your Shopify admin. Then, make sure the status of your domain says, “Connected.” 

Part 5: Tracking your success

As we noted earlier, one of the most important factors of Shopify SEO success is building a process of continuous measurement and enhancement. The following platforms will help you do just that and keep you on the innovative edge of your industry. 

Set up accounts on Google and Bing

We probably don’t need to prove to you that Google is the most popular search engine in the world. As such, tapping into the free tools it provides to help you boost website and SEO performance is key to achieving and tracking your success. 

To do so, we recommend setting up both Google Search Console (GSC) and Google Analytics (GA4). Google Search Console is a free tool that lets website owners monitor search traffic, track search performance, and identify any issues that might hinder rankings. To get set up, visit the sign-in page. Google Analytics provides insights into how users interact with your website. This guide from Google will help you get going. 

Now, let’s look at Bing, the second most-used search engine. 

Bing Webmaster Tools is a free set of features designed to help website owners improve speed, linking, SEO, and many other performance elements. To use it, sign up for an account, add your website, and follow the prompts for setup.

Try more free SEO tools

Staying on top of the algorithm changes, trends, and competitors that all impact rankings can be a full-time job — one that you probably don’t have a ton of time for when running your actual Shopify business! 

That’s when free SEO tools can help: 

• For keyword research, check out Google Ads Keyword Planner, Keyword.io, and Surfer’s Keyword Surfer Chrome extension 

• To get free link-building support, use Broken Link Checker Chrome extension

• Get content marketing help for free with SEOmator Robots.txt Tester and Moz Title Tag Preview Tool 

• Keep an eye on SERP rank using CanIRank and SerpRobot

• Gather reports and analytics on SEO performance with UpCity SEO Report Card (in addition to Google Analytics and Google Search Console)

• Boost your on-page SEO further with help from Google PageSpeed Insights, Google Rich Results Test, and the Ahrefs SEO Toolbar
  

Grow your Shopify website SEO in 2024 — and beyond

On your Shopify SEO journey, remember that success doesn’t happen overnight.

SEO is a long-term investment that requires consistent effort to grow year after year. By applying the strategies and tools outlined here today, you can increase your brand’s visibility, drive organic traffic, and ultimately build a thriving business.

But maybe you feel your current Shopify brand has grown as far as you can take it, or you just want to hand it off to a new team who can continue to scale it while you pursue your next passion project. 

‍OpenStore leverages experienced professionals, custom technology, and investment capital to acquire and run some of the best businesses built on Shopify. 

Looking to sell your Shopify business? If you’ve had your U.S.-focused Shopify business for more than six months with over $500K net sales to consumers, we may be able to help you with a fast, transparent, and easy acquisition. 

‍Request an offer here to complete a five-minute application, receive a competitive offer in a week or less, and be on your way to a smooth sales process.