7 Best Shopify SEO Tips to Rank High and Sell More in 2021 | MADX

But, first, what is Shopify?

Shopify is a powerful ecommerce website that helps small businesses and individuals start an online business. Shopify customer’s experience is top-notch, and it’s not just us saying it. Shopify has been verified by millions of users around the globe, sharing positive Shopify reviews.

Shopify’s intuitive interface allows you to set up your new website in minutes, and it comes with robust features for Shopify SEO optimization. Users can easily rank higher on Google search results pages (SERPs). This is why Shopify is dubbed as the best ecommerce platform on the internet.

What is Shopify SEO and how can it help generate more sales?

Selling on Shopify is all about traffic, leads, and conversions.

Between Youtube, Gmail, and the search engine, Gooogle has practically taken over the internet. Google is the internet in a way. So they make rules, and these rules can be confusing at times.

Shopify SEO also can be challenging to understand. It’s a confusing, frustrating process at first. Internet is folded with so many different tactics and strategies that it’s hard to know what’s worth your time. You can hardly find Shopify reviews for SEO strategies without much digging.

Essentially, you won’t sell much on Shopify by publishing a few strangely stuffed articles, no matter how many keywords you are inside. Shopify SEO is not about keyword stuffing. When you understand what SEO truly represents and why it’s more than just keywords (and eve page rankings), you’ll slowly see the matrix, and start selling on Shopify.

Shopify SEO is people.

Kudos if you get this reference. You’re not optimizing your website for Google. You’re optimizing it for people. SEO is people. The research process is also all about people. Marketers pick topics according to their targeted audience, creating stuff customers want to buy. If you find out that the keyword “Boxing equipment” has many hits, you can explore and deliver content about boxing gloves, gyms, and punching bags.

Before we start, I’m assuming that your website is technically up to the task. Google values user experience and measures loading speed, bouncing rates, and time spent on site. Nothing can help you rank higher if your website is slow and full of technical issues.

Fix your bugs first, and then sprinkle some SEO magic and watch your ecommerce website grow like a magic bean from the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Google is your giant.

This short guide will walk you through the 7 most effective Shopify SEO tips that have helped our clients increase their organic traffic by as much as 2,000% in a few months.

How to improve SEO and start selling on Shopify

1. Add keywords in your title tags and the opening sentence
2. Keep your shop three clicks-deep, and easy to navigate
3. Tag all images, videos, or other media files with relevant keywords
4. Update old content to create timely pieces, and create evergreen content from fresh news
5. Blog on free blogging services,, including Medium, Vocal, and others. (Canonical links on Medium)
6. Share your Links on Hacker News and other news aggregators
7. Make use of HARO, a free PR service to generate earn media

1. Add keywords in your title tags and the opening sentence to improve SEO

While keyword stuffing doesn’t fool search engine algorithms anymore, you can still help your website communicate better with Google’s and Bing’s machines.

Search engine algorithms judge the relevancy of a website according to its keywords in titles and first sentences on pages. Make sure that you have the proper <h1>, <h2>, <h3> and <p> tags. Then add your focus keywords to each headline and the first paragraph. Make it look organically. You’re not in the business of following algorithms but rather in the business of attracting customers with quality content.

2. Keep your shop 3 clicks deep for optimal Shopify SEO

Make sure that your ecommerce website has a depth of about three clicks.

The goal for any online store website is customer optimization. Popular stores sport high-quality product pages and offer a smooth user experience. The complicated shopping experience may turn shoppers away from your business, even if you offer the best products and services out there.

Optimizing every aspect of each web page within your ecommerce platform. Always add a backlink to the homepage, and offer a max. 3-click path to any content on your ecommerce website. Everything over three clicks is unnecessary, and can greatly impact your Shopify reviews.

3. Tag all images, videos, or other media files with relevant keywords

Ensure that all images, videos, or other media files have proper tags with appropriate metadata, such as caption and alternate text descriptions. Proper Alt text and caption help create more avenues for your content. Search engines like Google Image or Video search can just the way how a new customer discovers your services and products.

Selling on Shopify is easier with more traffic, and proper image tags can help you find new avenues to reach your customers.

4. Boost your Shopify SEO efforts by updating old content to create timely pieces, and repurpose news to create evergreen articles

Repurposing and updating content is great for selling on Shopify.

If you’ve been publishing content for years but haven’t updated anything recently, then it might be time to go back through some of those posts and update them to create more relevant content.

Conversely, take the latest news and create evergreen content that could be relevant five years for now. Publishing articles and landing pages is only the being of your job. Old content can open floodgates of benefits. You can add more relevant keywords, mention new services, and change broken links. News always creates at least two stories- ones with evergreen lessons and others depicting current events.

5. Blog on free blogging services including Medium, Vocal, and others

Medium, Vocal, Newsbreak and other hyper-content websites let you open an account and publish your content. Blogging platforms already have an in-built audience and offer a shortcut to finding your prospects.

Leveraging established platforms is essential if you’re just starting with your efforts to boost Shopify SEO and attract more traffic. You can build tens of thousands of good quality backlinks just with Medium alone. Buying ten quality backlinks on Fiver or Upwork can set you back hundreds of dollars, and buying cheap ones can ruin your business. However, you can do something else — something free and highly impactful.

Medium has stellar domain authority, which can help your Shopify SEO efforts in more ways than one. First, you’re getting traffic from the content, which is always good. And second, you’re getting more authority with Google, which can help with ranking your website higher.

Google now crawls everything. The platform knows whether you have do-follow or no-follow links and how many times your shop has been referenced on social media. Google sees everything. However, generating a bunch of random backlinks is not a strategy here.

If SEO is people, then backlinks are traffic. Backlinks are avenues to your website,, and their purpose is to help interested prospects find your Shopify store. SEO strategists shouldn’t care about spamming any feature, let alone generating thousands of bogus backlinks. It doesn’t work. You’re only risking a penalty from the big boss. Google’s ban will ruin all your efforts at optimizing your ecommerce website, and you can forget about organic traffic.

Here’s what really works and has helped our clients climb up in ranks.

1. Syndicate the right way. Open a Medium account. Copy one article that’s already published on your Shopify blog into a new draft. Then, open the story setting, scroll down and then click to expand advanced settings. You’ll see an option to add a canonical link there, under advanced options. Simply copy the original link and publish the story. Google can now understand that this is a syndicated story and that the original is on your website.
2. Follow the same on other platforms by adding a rel=canonical link in code, or ask the webmasters and moderators to add one. Most websites are happy to syndicate your content.
3. Write on a topic relevant to your niche, and add links to your story where it seems fitting. The rule of thumb is that backlinks should be placed to verbs of the sentence. But follow your gut in this case. Make it look organic by actually being organic.

Social-blogging platforms will boost SEO efforts for your ecommerce website and also deliver traffic that will help you start selling on Shopify.

6. Share your Links on Hacker News, Digg, and other social news aggregators

Internet marketing is a young business, full of low-hanging fruit.

You don’t have to be a professional marketeer or an SEO expert to open the floodgates of internet traffic and start selling on Shopify. Sometimes, all you need is 15 or 20 minutes of focused effort and a quick finger for copy/paste hotkeys.

Social news websites are the lowest hanging fruit in the world of Shopify marketing. Sure, you can share your links on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, but we’re assuming you’re already doing that — as it is common sense.

Hacker News can help you hit additional 10,000 views a month if your headline resonates with the audience. The trick here is to share newsworthy content, even if it’s a landing page. Digg can also help you reach a targeted audience, and other websites like Reddit can also be of great help.

All you have to do is open an account, get familiar with the content on the website, and start sharing something that might resonate with the existing audience. It’s that easy. Generating traffic from social news shouldn’t take more than 3minutes per website. Once you set up your account, all you need is to paste your link to said platform.

Here’s a list of top social news websites

1. Hacker News
2. Digg
3. Reddit
4. Propeller
5. Fark
6. Slashdot
7. Metafilter
8. StumbleUpon
9. Sphinn
10. Ball Hype

Find the right fit before blasting links on these social news websites. Sharing the wrong story on the wrong platform may be a waste of time. Hacker News is suitable for any tech-related news, but not for diet advice. Delivering a story that serves the audience will generate more traffic and boost your Shopify SEO efforts.

7. Generate free PR with HARO

The best kind of promotion comes from earn media.

Besides paid advertising, and free social media and news, most marketers want to tap into organic media coverage. If your story hits massive news outlets, you can expect a tremendous boost in Shopify SEO rankings and traffic. All this ultimately leads to more sales, better profits, and a stronger business outlook.

How to generate earned media?

First, you don’t have to be Donald Trump or any controversial personality. You can simply settle in for a win-win scenario. Established journalists need quotes and references from real people every day. Nobody can be at five places at once, but free services can help them reach out to interesting parties at scale. That’s you and your clients.

Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is one of these services. You can apply for a free newsletter and receive hundreds of reference requests a day. Topics structure the newsletter, so you can skip straight to the niche that’s relevant for your business. Journalists usually ask for a quick 50ish word opinion on a particular topic and offer the possibility of adding a backlink together with your credentials. This is the perfect way to mention your business. Google can’t deny you rankings when your Shopify store links back to Business Insider, Forbes, CNN, Fox News, or other media powerhouses.

HARO’s free account is more than enough to get you started. The number of requests can be overwhelming at times, beware.

Create an effective Shopify SEO strategy and start Selling on Shopify

Shopify SEO can be a complex topic for new founders.

The best ecommerce platform is home to millions of successful shops. Most Shopify stores never see the light of day. If you don’t have traffic and your products are not flying off the shelves of your virtual store, your business may be in a pinch. Shopify SEO agencies charge massive advances for their efforts because they know the potential of a well-executed marketing strategy.

Organic traffic can propel your Shopify store into the stratosphere.

If you don’t have a few grand lying around to hire someone, you have to do many of these things alone. This guide gives everything you need to start.

Follow tested and tried SEO strategies and open the floodgates of the internet traffic.

Credits:

Written by yours truly, Toni Koraza

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