The Essential Shopify SEO Checklist | 2022

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If you are running a Shopify store, you will know that getting more traffic from search engines is essential to your success.

It can be hard to figure out where to start when you decide to improve the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) results for your website. 

With the constant changes in how search engine rankings are calculated, it can be challenging for anyone to keep up. But there are still ways to improve your overall ranking by optimising content, using keywords, and setting up a Google Search Console. 

We have created this blog post to help you improve your SEO results for your Shopify store and help guide you on some SEO basic principles. 

The goal of SEO is to get your site to be found by as many people and search engines as possible. 

Let’s first start off by defining what SEO is:

Search Engine Optimisation: Commonly referred to as SEO, it is the process of optimising your website to improve the quantity and quality of traffic. 

In simple terms, it’s the process of making sure that the right people are able to find your website by ranking it as highly as possible on Google or whatever other search engine your clients are using.

Shopify SEO: This is the process of optimising your Shopify website’s traffic. This is a little bit more niche than general SEO because the emphasis is on eCommerce businesses and their unique challenges.

Below is a checklist of all the essential steps to make in setting up your Shopify store.

Checklist

  • Buy A Custom Domain
  • Set Up Google Analytics 
  • Set up Google Search Console
  • Set up Google My Business
  • Keyword Research 
  • SEO Apps
  • Optimise URLs
  • Optimise Page Title and Meta Descriptions 
  • Site Structure – Mobile-friendly, Speed
  • Page Optimisation/ On-page SEO
  • Set Up a Link Building Strategy – External and Internal Links
  • Product Schema
  • Broken Links and Duplicate Copy
  • Create Content Consistently 
  • Robots.txt File
  • XML Sitemaps
  • HTTP Status 
  • Feedback

1. Buy A Custom Domain

A domain name is a digital address that people use to reach your website. Domain names were created to make it easy for humans to find and visit sites. 

Buying a custom domain name is essential when creating a website and business! When you buy a custom domain, it helps build trust, makes it easy for people to discover and access your website, and it also helps drive traffic towards your site. 

Shopify’s domain name generator can give you a list of creative ideas. 

Check out our article on how to get your domain name set up.

2. Set Up Google Analytics 

Google Analytics is a free tool that lets you track and monitor the behaviour of those who visit your Shopify store – from traffic to conversions. 

Go to analytics.google.com, click the “start measuring” button and follow the account setup instructions. Once this is set up, Google will begin collecting data from your website. 

Shopify has an in-depth guide on how to set up Google Analytics.

3. Set up Google Search Console

Google Search Console is another free tool that lets you track and monitor the performance of your Shopify store onGoogle. The focus here is on search engine optimization. 

Go to Google Search Console, click the “start now” button and follow the account instructions. Once this is set up, Google will begin collecting data from your website. 

4. Submit your Sitemap using Google Search Console.

Google Search Central defines a sitemap as “a file where you provide information about the pages, videos, and other files on your site, and the relationships between them.” They go on and say that “search engines like Google read this file to crawl [scan] your site more efficiently. A sitemap tells Google which pages and files you think are important to your site and also provides valuable information about these files. For example, when the page was last updated and any alternate language versions of the page.”

To access your sitemap, type in https://www.domainname.com/sitemap.xml

Read our in-depth guide on how to submit your website to search engines.

5. Set up Google My Business

Google My Business is another free tool for local businesses where you add your business information to Google. 

Here, you can add your address, phone, opening hours, and other relevant information that prospects might be searching for. This makes it easy for people to find you when they search online.

Customers can write reviews and share photos, and you can respond. 

6. Keyword Research 

Keywords are what users type in to search for information online.

Keyword research helps you understand what keywords people use to find your products. 

Enhance your content with the right keywords and tags to ensure that it appears in organic searches, which will increase traffic and improve conversion rates.

There are 4 types of search intent keywords 

  1. Navigational: These are used when searching for a website or page.
  2. Informational: These are used when searching for the answer to a question.
  3. Commercial: These are used when searching for products and services. 
  4. Transactional: These are used with purchase intent. 

7. Optimise URLs

URLs should be as descriptive and straightforward as possible. They not only tell search engines what your content is about but also the viewer. 

A URL should include words relevant to its contents. 

Source: Google Search Central 

For example, the URL below has the same name as the article.

Google Search Central has an in-depth guide on URL Structure.

8. Title and Meta Descriptions 

A page title is: The title of your page.

A meta description is: A brief description of the product or contents of the page. This is meant to get the viewer interested in clicking the link. 

9. Page Optimisation/ On-page SEO

10. Link Building

If you want to rank higher on Google, link building is an integral part of SEO!

The main thing search engines look at when determining your website’s authority is the quality of its links. 

Set Up a Link Building Strategy for External and Internal Links:

Internal linking: This is when you link to other pages on your website. 

For example, in this blog post, we added an internal link to one of our other blog posts for those who wish to learn how to submit your website to search engines.

For eCommerce, you can link to related products. 

Internal linking increases authority because Google can index the content by distributing good SEO from one page to another and making it easier to share relevant resources with your audience. 

External linking: This is when other websites link to your website. 

For example, in this blog post, we added an external link to Google My Business so you can easily access it to set up your business on Google as opposed to searching it yourself. 

External linking increases authority because search engine algorithms can see that other sites value your content enough to link to it. 

11. Product Schema

schema.dev defines a product schema as a “markup code that is embedded in your website. It is the structured data of your product that publishes alongside your product in search results. Its purpose is to help search engines provide better results to users. Utilizing product schema markup is a way that companies can use their websites to stand from their competitors in terms of SEO.”

Product schema allows you to enrich how your products appear on search engine results. This can be in the form of price, star ratings & availability. 

For example, Neutrogena has rich data sharing the price, ratings, and available stores. This enhances the customer experience both search wise and visually. 

Here are some additional resources: 

Schema Markup Generator

Schema.org

schemaapp.com

12. Broken Links and Duplicate Content

Broken links are when you click on a link at it directs you to a 404 error page. This shows that the page doesn’t exist. 

This can reduce the experience on your site because users are promised ar resource only to find it doesn’t exist, and it also affects your link building strategy. 

Also when Google crawls your page and finds a broken link, this will affect your authority. 

Duplicate content is as it sounds. This is when you have multiple copies of the same type of content. This can hurt your SEO results since Google doesn’t know which one to rank. 

For eCommerce products, pages are the biggest culprits of duplicates. 

Use a canonical URL to notify Google which one to rank for duplicated content you want to keep or to hide that content.

Here are some tools to find broken links and duplicate content.

13. Create Content Consistently 

To increase your online store’s popularity and success rates, you should create relevant content for your products. You can do this by encouraging other websites to link back to your site (this intertwines with your link building strategy).

Consumers have become more intelligent, and the internet has made the world a much bigger place (more competitive!) This has changed the landscape. Brands have to add VALUE before they can sell.

This is where content creation comes in. It’s all about creating content that will intrigue those browsing online while providing the solutions they need.

14. robots.txt File

Google Search Central states that “a robots.txt file is used primarily to manage crawler traffic to your site, and usually to keep a file off Google.”

Essentially these are web pages that you don’t want to be crawled, for example, repetitive pages or pages that don’t have value. 

Note however that a robot.txt file is not meant to protect sensitive information like addresses and bank details. Here’s a resource on how to block content from being crawled. 

Here are some tools for further elaboration:

15. HTTP Status 

Thawte defines an SSL certificate as ” a bit of code on your web server that provides security for online communications.” 

A website with an SSL certificate becomes HTTPS as opposed to HTTP.

SSL certificates are essential because: 

  • An SSL certificate protects user data like passwords and credit card numbers.
  • It is also used to verify your ownership of the site and protects you from scammers creating copies of your website. 
  • When someone searches for your website online and they see HTTPS they know that they can trust your website as opposed to HTTP. 
  • According to Global Sign, “85% of online shoppers avoid unsecured websites.”

16. SEO Apps

There are many apps out there to help with your SEO results. 

Here are a few SEO Apps: 

Ubersuggest: Domain overview, top SEO pages, keyword suggestions and content ideas.

BuzzSumo: Discovery, research, influencers and monitoring.

Ahrefs: Site audit, site explorer, keyword explorer, content explorer and rank tracker. 

Moz: Site audits, rank tracking, backlink analysis and keyword research.

Keyword Surfer: Chrome extension for content and keyword research. 

keywordseverywhere: Key metrics and analytics. 

17. Feedback

All of the above can help guide you in improving your SEO results for your Shopify store, as well as providing valuable feedback on what is working and what isn’t. 

Google hasn’t shared their algorithm with the world, so our best bet is to work within best practices and guidelines. 

SEO is a long-term investment that can pay off with steady traffic growth over time. But it’s a slow process – there are a lot of factors to consider, and even small changes can take weeks or months to show results. 

That’s why we put together this comprehensive checklist to help you prime yourself for success, track your progress and make sure you haven’t missed anything important. 

We hope you find it helpful! Have you tried any of these techniques to improve your website ranking?

Ready to do Shopify the easy way? Book a call with KAMG!

Amy Rendel

Amy Rendel

Author

AMY RENDEL is a marketing consultant from South Africa currently residing in Israel. She has a B.Com in marketing and has worked with companies in South Africa, Israel, the UK, and the US. She spends her days writing blogs, website content and social media posts.

Privacy Policy

Last updated: June 08, 2022

This Privacy Policy describes Our policies and procedures on the collection, use and disclosure of Your information when You use the Service and tells You about Your privacy rights and how the law protects You.

We use Your Personal data to provide and improve the Service. By using the Service, You agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Interpretation and Definitions

Interpretation

The words of which the initial letter is capitalized have meanings defined under the following conditions. The following definitions shall have the same meaning regardless of whether they appear in singular or in plural.

Definitions

For the purposes of this Privacy Policy:

  • Account means a unique account created for You to access our Service or parts of our Service.

  • Company (referred to as either “the Company”, “We”, “Us” or “Our” in this Agreement) refers to Kas Andz Marketing Group, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN.

  • Cookies are small files that are placed on Your computer, mobile device or any other device by a website, containing the details of Your browsing history on that website among its many uses.

  • Country refers to: United Kingdom

  • Device means any device that can access the Service such as a computer, a cellphone or a digital tablet.

  • Personal Data is any information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual.

  • Service refers to the Website.

  • Service Provider means any natural or legal person who processes the data on behalf of the Company. It refers to third-party companies or individuals employed by the Company to facilitate the Service, to provide the Service on behalf of the Company, to perform services related to the Service or to assist the Company in analyzing how the Service is used.

  • Usage Data refers to data collected automatically, either generated by the use of the Service or from the Service infrastructure itself (for example, the duration of a page visit).

  • Website refers to Kas Andz Marketing Group, accessible from kasandz.

  • You means the individual accessing or using the Service, or the company, or other legal entity on behalf of which such individual is accessing or using the Service, as applicable.

Collecting and Using Your Personal Data

Types of Data Collected

Personal Data

While using Our Service, We may ask You to provide Us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify You. Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to:

  • Email address

  • First name and last name

  • Phone number

  • Address, State, Province, ZIP/Postal code, City

  • Usage Data

Usage Data

Usage Data is collected automatically when using the Service.

Usage Data may include information such as Your Device’s Internet Protocol address (e.g. IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that You visit, the time and date of Your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

When You access the Service by or through a mobile device, We may collect certain information automatically, including, but not limited to, the type of mobile device You use, Your mobile device unique ID, the IP address of Your mobile device, Your mobile operating system, the type of mobile Internet browser You use, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

We may also collect information that Your browser sends whenever You visit our Service or when You access the Service by or through a mobile device.

Tracking Technologies and Cookies

We use Cookies and similar tracking technologies to track the activity on Our Service and store certain information. Tracking technologies used are beacons, tags, and scripts to collect and track information and to improve and analyze Our Service. The technologies We use may include:

  • Cookies or Browser Cookies. A cookie is a small file placed on Your Device. You can instruct Your browser to refuse all Cookies or to indicate when a Cookie is being sent. However, if You do not accept Cookies, You may not be able to use some parts of our Service. Unless you have adjusted Your browser setting so that it will refuse Cookies, our Service may use Cookies.
  • Flash Cookies. Certain features of our Service may use local stored objects (or Flash Cookies) to collect and store information about Your preferences or Your activity on our Service. Flash Cookies are not managed by the same browser settings as those used for Browser Cookies. For more information on how You can delete Flash Cookies, please read “Where can I change the settings for disabling, or deleting local shared objects?” available at flash player.
  • Web Beacons. Certain sections of our Service and our emails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit the Company, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of a certain section and verifying system and server integrity).

Cookies can be “Persistent” or “Session” Cookies. Persistent Cookies remain on Your personal computer or mobile device when You go offline, while Session Cookies are deleted as soon as You close Your web browser. Learn more about cookies on the Free Privacy Policy website article.

We use both Session and Persistent Cookies for the purposes set out below:

  • Necessary / Essential Cookies

    Type: Session Cookies

    Administered by: Us

    Purpose: These Cookies are essential to provide You with services available through the Website and to enable You to use some of its features. They help to authenticate users and prevent fraudulent use of user accounts. Without these Cookies, the services that You have asked for cannot be provided, and We only use these Cookies to provide You with those services.

  • Cookies Policy / Notice Acceptance Cookies

    Type: Persistent Cookies

    Administered by: Us

    Purpose: These Cookies identify if users have accepted the use of cookies on the Website.

  • Functionality Cookies

    Type: Persistent Cookies

    Administered by: Us

    Purpose: These Cookies allow us to remember choices You make when You use the Website, such as remembering your login details or language preference. The purpose of these Cookies is to provide You with a more personal experience and to avoid You having to re-enter your preferences every time You use the Website.

For more information about the cookies we use and your choices regarding cookies, please visit our Cookies Policy or the Cookies section of our Privacy Policy.

Use of Your Personal Data

The Company may use Personal Data for the following purposes:

  • To provide and maintain our Service, including to monitor the usage of our Service.

  • To manage Your Account: to manage Your registration as a user of the Service. The Personal Data You provide can give You access to different functionalities of the Service that are available to You as a registered user.

  • For the performance of a contract: the development, compliance and undertaking of the purchase contract for the products, items or services You have purchased or of any other contract with Us through the Service.

  • To contact You: To contact You by email, telephone calls, SMS, or other equivalent forms of electronic communication, such as a mobile application’s push notifications regarding updates or informative communications related to the functionalities, products or contracted services, including the security updates, when necessary or reasonable for their implementation.

  • To provide You with news, special offers and general information about other goods, services and events which we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about unless You have opted not to receive such information.

  • To manage Your requests: To attend and manage Your requests to Us.

  • For business transfers: We may use Your information to evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of Our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which Personal Data held by Us about our Service users is among the assets transferred.

  • For other purposes: We may use Your information for other purposes, such as data analysis, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns and to evaluate and improve our Service, products, services, marketing and your experience.

We may share Your personal information in the following situations:

  • With Service Providers: We may share Your personal information with Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of our Service, to contact You.
  • For business transfers: We may share or transfer Your personal information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of Company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of Our business to another company.
  • With Affiliates: We may share Your information with Our affiliates, in which case we will require those affiliates to honor this Privacy Policy. Affiliates include Our parent company and any other subsidiaries, joint venture partners or other companies that We control or that are under common control with Us.
  • With business partners: We may share Your information with Our business partners to offer You certain products, services or promotions.
  • With other users: when You share personal information or otherwise interact in the public areas with other users, such information may be viewed by all users and may be publicly distributed outside.
  • With Your consent: We may disclose Your personal information for any other purpose with Your consent.

Retention of Your Personal Data

The Company will retain Your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain and use Your Personal Data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies.

The Company will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of Our Service, or We are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.

Transfer of Your Personal Data

Your information, including Personal Data, is processed at the Company’s operating offices and in any other places where the parties involved in the processing are located. It means that this information may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of Your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those from Your jurisdiction.

Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by Your submission of such information represents Your agreement to that transfer.

The Company will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that Your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of Your Personal Data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of Your data and other personal information.

Disclosure of Your Personal Data

Business Transactions

If the Company is involved in a merger, acquisition or asset sale, Your Personal Data may be transferred. We will provide notice before Your Personal Data is transferred and becomes subject to a different Privacy Policy.

Law enforcement

Under certain circumstances, the Company may be required to disclose Your Personal Data if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g. a court or a government agency).

Other legal requirements

The Company may disclose Your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:

  • Comply with a legal obligation
  • Protect and defend the rights or property of the Company
  • Prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service
  • Protect the personal safety of Users of the Service or the public
  • Protect against legal liability

Security of Your Personal Data

The security of Your Personal Data is important to Us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While We strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect Your Personal Data, We cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Children’s Privacy

Our Service does not address anyone under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13. If You are a parent or guardian and You are aware that Your child has provided Us with Personal Data, please contact Us. If We become aware that We have collected Personal Data from anyone under the age of 13 without verification of parental consent, We take steps to remove that information from Our servers.

If We need to rely on consent as a legal basis for processing Your information and Your country requires consent from a parent, We may require Your parent’s consent before We collect and use that information.

Links to Other Websites

Our Service may contain links to other websites that are not operated by Us. If You click on a third party link, You will be directed to that third party’s site. We strongly advise You to review the Privacy Policy of every site You visit.

We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third party sites or services.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update Our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify You of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page.

We will let You know via email and/or a prominent notice on Our Service, prior to the change becoming effective and update the “Last updated” date at the top of this Privacy Policy.

You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, You can contact us:

  • By email: team@kasandz.com