Shopify SEO For Your Store | A Guide To Everything You Need To Know

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Shopify SEO For Your Store:  You ever wonder how Shopify store owners drive great traffic without going bankrupt buying ads?  

We have to tell you that the secret will surprise you. In our experience, successful Shopify store owners drive more traffic than their competitors who spend five figures on ads by using the SEO practices set forth in Google’s guidelines.

SEO “Search Engine Optimization” raises controversy in the new wave of online business owners.

‘SEO [search engine optimization]  doesn’t matter.’ – Most Shopify Store Owners say.

Wrong!

We know Search Engine Optimization is a powerful tool. SEO, like social media and meta-description, can drive traffic to your Shopify store website that would never get there with ads. Most people fail to tap into the power of SEO and lose out on a major source of traffic for their website.

Why do Shopify Store Owners fail At SEO?

We have seen Shopify store owners fail to use on page SEO for two reasons.

1) They Don’t Know The Key Tactics That Produce Good Shopify SEO:

Most Shopify store owners are busy. They have spent weeks researching their market, their website, securing products, testing meta-description, writing good title tag content, designing their Shopify store, double checking everything (twice!), and they are exhausted.

By the time the Shopify store launches, the owners have done little or no Shopify SEO work.

The Shopify store owner does not think about SEO, title tag writing, or meta-description until four weeks after launch when they realize they aren’t driving the traffic they hoped for. The owner scrambles to learn everything they can about Search Engine Optimization. They read multiple articles, search for experts, stuff keywords, and nothing produces results.

The Shopify store owners get so focused on trying every tactic they can fail to realize the basic building blocks of an e-commerce platform website that drive great Seach Engine Optimization. Eventually, they get frustrated and give up entirely.

2) They Don’t Know How to Figure Out The Shopify SEO Setup They Need:

Take it from us, the one thing worse than not knowing how to use search engine optimization is not knowing how to do the research to drive the right SE.

If you want to drive the kind of traffic that will lead to sales, you need a keyword, title tag, long-tail keyword, and meta-description research. Keyword research is important. Knowing the right keywords and what sites to link to will help drive Shopify SEO traffic that matches the purpose of your Shopify Store.

In our experience, Stores with high Shopify SEO and little sales have driven the wrong traffic to their site. Do you want to drive more traffic that results in sales on your website? We can help. We have made a step by step guide outlining the key performance indicators Google looks for when ranking your page.

How Google Ranking Works

The ranking is how Google assigns a value to your site. You want your Shopify store to have a high ranking. The higher Google ranks your store, the greater your flow of traffic from your Shopify SEO will be.

Google assigns rankings to your website/eCommerce store based on the number of backlinks, organic keywords, and overall holistic Seach Engine Optimization which we will discuss later. 

The Fact is that Google has a complex algorithm to rank sites. They also have a team of people who constantly review sites and flag them if they deem it appropriate.

If you want to rank your website higher than the competition, you need to focus on three things.

1) Quality Keywords for Higher Shopify SEO:

Google is going to rank your Website based on your keywords, both in your article and your title tag. The better your keyword, the greater your chance of getting ranked by Google. There are two ways to get quality keywords. The first way is low cost and easy to do.

You type in the word that describes your service and see what Google autofill in for the rest.

Example:

Say you are wanting to rank in the ‘weight loss’ business. You type in weight loss and see what pops up. When I did it, the first thing that popped up was ‘weight watchers’. That means weight watchers.

If you want to get more in-depth with your keyword research, you have to increase your website Search Engine Optimization, harness the power of duplicate content, your Shopify SEO, key meta-description words, title tag content, and dial in the best possible choices; you can pay for a service like Yoast to review all the keywords in your field. I use Yoast in all my websites and it is a great tool to help me validate SEO strategies.

2) Great Content:

Shopify stores that have a great clear in-depth content rank higher in SEO than stores that don’t.

What Is Great Website Content?

We have seen that Google ranks content that is informative, useful, relevant and not fluff. 

Note: Do NOT publish filler content hoping to fool Google. This is where we see a lot of Search Engine Optimization, title tag writers, duplicate content re-sharers, and meta-description first-timers get it wrong.  

Google programs are sophisticated & way more intelligent than people think! Google can scan a page and know if the content is a well-written article or a recycled sales page made to sound like a blog post.  

What Makes Content Great for Great Shopify search engine optimization?

In our SEO Shopify Expert opinion, great content delivers three things:

• • Quality Advice: If your post shares an idea or a thought that can help readers learn or solve a problem, this makes for good content.

• • Good Writing Score: Google likes it when your content is readable. You can measure your content’s readability using the Flesch-Kincaid scoring system.

• Content Depth: Google doesn’t want to see dozens of hundred to three hundred word articles. To the search engines, this has the same effect as keyword stuffing. A good article has a minimum of five hundred words or longer.

3) Great BackLinks a Key to Higher Shopify SEO:

Google likes it when you build links into your website. What separates a good link from a bad link?

Good backLinks: These are links that relate to your service or product. They go to sites that are real sites, and they aren’t on every page. You can also link to other pages on your site and add value to your meta-description if the link from page to page is relevant.

Example: You are selling products based face wash kit, and you have a link to your monthly grooming subscription kit.

Bad backLinks: These are links that are in no way related to your site or service. Most times, these are links that people who don’t understand linking strategy use or they copy content instead of producing duplicate content.

We can Help if you ar

Here Is a ‘BIG’ Mistake To Avoid:

Don’t set up three or four dummy website pages that promote or provide landing links to your site. Google is smarter than these dated tactics, and it will quickly shut off any traffic you had and drop you to the bottom of the rankings.

See The Big Picture To Stand Out From The Competition

The Big Picture – in Shopify SEO

Google wants you to stand out from others in your field. That is what we do. We understand that when you focus on creating content that makes your website unique, has solid content and that it is valuable and engaging, Google responds in kind and sends you free traffic.

Now, let’s explore how you can expand ‘linking’ to achieve the following benefits:

* Leverage the existing value of your content

* Drive traffic by letting other sites re-purpose your advice  

* Increase your Shopify Store’s social authority for readers and Google’s Algorithm

Building Valuable Backlinks: A Quick Primer To Doubling Your Content’s Worth-and increasing search engine optimization

Before we go into the strategies, here is a brief explanation of what backlinking really is all about! 

Back Linking for imprpve Shopify SEO: Letting another site share links to your content or advice.

Example: You have a store that sells products like waist trainers. Your content marketing strategy promotes your waist trainers with free videos. These videos share simple exercises you can do with your products to speed up your results.

This content is valuable! Most sites do not have the time, drive, or money to promote in a similar way. You allow the site to share a link to your video course on their page. This link is a backlink to your page.

Got it?  Okay. Here is a quick strategy to both creating content that gets backlinked and what you need to include in your content for Google to value the backlink.

Shopify SEO Backlinking – Secrets To Being So Good Even The Competition Shares You.

There are three keys to creating content to get backlinks on competitors’ sites and getting Google to love you.

Key 1) Create Mouth Watering for Search Engine Optimization Content

Most sites don’t have the time or talent to create great content. If you have a piece (or pieces) of great content, you can get competing sites to share it and increase your Shopify SEO. Sound like an impossible skill test for your e-commerce platform? It’s not. Here’s why.

Shopify Stores Understand The Value of Great Content.

E-commerce website business owners must know that great content creates social proof and adds value to their site’s meta description, duplicate content posting, and click-through rate–thereby creating great Shopify SEO results.  When an e-commerce website features your information as part of their strategy, they stand to lose customers. However, the site stands to lose just as many customers by not supplying them with great content.

The site can avert this risk by sharing your content to tap your social proof as their own. An example of this occurs in the blogging world. Lesser known bloggers create amazing content for premium bloggers to get noticed. These are called ‘Guest Posts’. The premium bloggers feature guest posts for a couple of reasons:

* Save time not having to write amazing content

* They get to tap your social proof without doing the work  

* The value of their site ranks higher than your article.

The guest posters get great backlinks and increase their SEO. So create amazing content. The better the content, the more likely people will be willing to share it.

Key 2 ) Make Your Content Asset Rich

Writing a great piece of content isn’t enough to get a good backlink. Just because a piece of content is good, well written, and informative, doesn’t make it good for backlinking. Why? The best backlinks are asset rich for the site featuring the link. Another key thing to remember is to have easy to understand alt-text in all the pictures. All these combined would produce great Shopify SEO results. 

Why? Simple. Easy to understand alt-text ensures your readers and Google know what an image is if it is blank. This is key to search engine optimization.

Asset rich backlinks and powerful alt-text deliver strong, targeted, actionable advice.

Example:

Imagine you are a Shopify store that sells high-quality products like wool shirts, and you want to backlink to content that creates authority about your product.

What would you be more willing to backlink to on your online store?

• An article on the growing popularity of wool shirts in the Midwest.

• A video series sharing key tips to elongate the life of your shirt.

The answer is simple. You want the content that increases the value of your client’s products and purchases.

Key 3) Make Your Content Results Based

Google directs searchers to answers. Make your content and online store results oriented. How can you do this? Here are three ways you can make your content results oriented so Google drives readers to your answers and increasing your Shopify SEO.

• Write Content Specific To An Issue Your Product Solves Thi is GREAT SEO!
  

  Let’s go back to the waist trainer example earlier. Creating a video series to help women who buy the waist trainer increase the speed at which they get their results is great content.

Think about it. You spend your time picking the right Shopify theme from the Shopify App store to solve your issues. Wouldn’t you do the same as a customer? Think of this, you are buying a waist trainer, you are motivated to do so because you want to change your body. Don’t stop there. Take that idea and dig deeper.

Look into the motivation behind why they made this choice over something else. It is here that you will find the results your customers would look for. With the waist trainers, women are willing to experience ongoing physical discomfort to change their bodies. They would love something that accelerated the effect they wanted.

• Make Your Content Easy To Understand

Most content fails to communicate clearly. The reason why is simple. The people who have experienced often forget what it is like not to have experience. This leads to poorly written and hard to understand the content. and this will impact your SEO or search engine optimzaiton

Example: Have you ever tried a recipe off the internet only for it to end up tasting or looking terrible?

The reason this happens isn’t that you are a bad chef. No. The reason this happens is that the writer assumed you knew details that they left out. 

To avoid this, make your content as easy to understand as possible. Imagine you are writing this content so a sixth grader could follow along and accomplish what you are teaching. If you are unsure if your content is clear enough, you can use the Flesch Kincaid scoring system to see what level your content reads out. This can help you understand the readability and clarity of your message.

• Make Your Content’s Headline Searchable

You want people to find your content. To do this, you need to create a searchable phrase. This is doubly important with backlinking. Great headlines explain what a piece of content is about instantly.

This is important with backlinks. If another site is going to share your content, they want their readers to understand the value of it instantly. Keeping your headlines short will help.

‘Wait, they won’t see the headline until they land on the page. Why does this matter?’

-You

This is true. If you are being backlinked, the link is most likely embedded in another word. That being said, you still need a good headline.

Why?

Simple. Readers who check out links still need to be drawn into your content. Just because a blogger or shop suggests you, doesn’t mean the readers will automatically scroll into your content. Your content has to draw them in. That’s why I suggested it is well written, easy to understand, and related to their needs.

If your content doesn’t draw readers into the article, Google will notice the bounce rate and average click-through rate of your e-commerce site.

Quick Note: You can use a Shopify App to track this.

This is something you want to avoid. Remember that the key to succeeding long term, driving great traffic, and building a lasting foundation for SEO success, revolves around following Google’s guidelines.

Drive The Traffic You Need

How To Follow Google’s Guidelines: Drive Ongoing Traffic with Your Shopify SEO

Before we get into the steps you can take to increase your SEO by following Google’s guidelines, let us explore the five reasons why you should.

1) Following Google’s Guidelines Keeps Your Shopify Store From Getting Blacklisted

Google will blacklist any store that tries to cheat their system. The reason why will surprise you-this is when you implement bad practices for search engine optimization.

Google wants you to follow their guidelines because their guidelines are built from years of results. Google did not create a random list of rules and hoops you need to jump through to increase your Shopify SEO. No.

Google has looked at years of content, seen what users want, seen what makes a site click with readers, and it knows what they want.

By following Google’s guidelines, you not only increase the SEO to your Shopify e-commerce platform, but you also tap years of market research. If you want your e-commerce Shopify platform to be built on a lasting foundation, use Google’s research and follow their guidelines.

2) Google Wants Your Content To Rock For Your Sake and more Shopify SEO

This goes back to reason number one. Google knows that when your Shopify store has great content and awesome anchor text you can get great results. Think about our waist trainer example. If a reader is thinking about buying a waist trainer and ends up watching your video series, you have primed the reader.

Priming is a psychological state that gets the reader ready to take the next step with their interest. By creating rich content that educates the reader, they not only see you as a trustworthy source, they are also more willing to take the next step with you despite the fact that you might be the most expensive in the industry.

That leads us to reason three.

3) The Guidelines Help You Attract Great Customers

In our experience helping Shopify store owners build successful e-commerce platforms, we find the best customers are attracted to results, not price.

By following Google’s guidelines, for Search Engine Optimization, you will create a funnel that attracts quality customers.

Example:

Look at Huckberry. They are a site that uses their online store to create an identity for men through clothing, footwear, outdoor gear, facial care, and accessories. Everything that Huckberry sells is above not just the low prices you see on clearance sites but also the average market price.

Despite being higher than similar products in their industry, Huckberry performs well. Why? Simple. They focus on branding a customer’s identity. They aren’t worried about attracting deal chasers who make a single purchase and never return. No.

Huckberry builds an e-commerce platform that helps its customers tell a better story about themselves. They do this through great content.

Great content puts you beyond price and upgrades you into the industry of identity. You want this. Identity doesn’t carry a price. That brings us to reason 4.

4) Google’s Content Guidelines Help You Build Your Customer’s Identity

If you want your business to succeed long term, you need your existing customers to keep coming back and this Google will reward-

Acquiring customers is expensive. Selling to people who have already been customers is easy. The easiest way to generate ongoing sales from people who already bought from you is to make your product part of their identity.

Creating identity for a customer means creating great content. Look at our nice shirt example above. People who spend money on nice shirts are more willing to care for them than someone who buys ten dollar tees from the clearance bin.

Create content that taps into the market that appreciates and uses your product as part of their identity. This brings us to reason five.

5) Why Google’s Guidelines Force You To See A Customer’s Lifetime Value

Google wants you to build great content for great search engine optimization to attract great business. The better your content, the better level of customer you attract. Everyone wins starting at the first purchase.

Let’s stop for a second and look beyond the first purchase. 

Great content taps into the lifetime value of a client. After that first purchase, you have entered into a deeper relationship. Your customer has validated your product and become a customer. This is where things get good.

Supplying an ongoing stream of great content will keep that customer primed to see you as part of their identity. This is where the real business magic happens.

Good customers are ongoing customers. Someone who buys from you once, if marketed to correctly, will buy from you many more times.

Great content leverages the psychology of identity and keeps customers coming back to widen the value of their story.

Sound good? Awesome!

Now let’s get into the three guideline secrets you can follow to get great content, drive traffic with SEO, and keep Google happy.

Guideline Secrets to Getting Great Content and to Increase your Shopify SEO

Google has a lot of rules. We distilled everything down to three key practices you can focus on to increase search engine optimization to your Shopify e-commerce store.

1. Write Great Content:

We keep coming back to this. Great content is key to attracting search engine optimization, driving traffic, and building the audience you want. We have seen patterns in content that is not only great but also popular. If you want to write great content and make it popular, you need to do a few key things.

-Great content is in-depth but easy to read: This article is four thousand words long, but it doesn’t feel like it. By keeping the message simple, readers will consume the entire article.

-Break up paragraphs and sections: We have seen this over and over. Great content is made readable through design. Break up your sections, bold key thoughts, and create short, easy to read paragraphs.

-It is informative: Don’t write clickbait. Produce content that is worth the time it takes to read it. Go in-depth over skimming the surface. Reward readers for their attention.

-Tackle the subject with greater clarity: You won’t be the first person to write about your topic. That means the content you create has to be better than what is already out there-search engine optimization

-Mobile Friendly: Google loves mobile friendly sites. Be sure to optimize your content for mobile users.

-Include Relevant Keywords: This is important. Don’t write an article and have the wrong keywords. Without the correct keywords, no one will see your content only Google when they are running search engine optimization

Let’s Discuss Guest Posting.

2) Guest Posting

You ever buy something a celebrity endorses? Endorsements tap the power of social authority. You don’t need to pay a celebrity a ton of money to promote your product. You can tap the same social authority, drive new traffic, and increase your SEO and Google ranking by guest posting.

What is Guest Posting?

Guest posting is when you write a piece of content for a business or blog that is not yours. Bloggers regularly guest post to build their audience.

Why Should You Guest Post? Here Are Three Reasons:

• • Google Ranks You Higher: Guest posting puts your links on other sites. Google loves this. The more relevant the link and the higher the ranking of the site you guest post on, the better off you will be.

• • That Site’s Authority Transfers To You: Appearing on another site is powerful social proof. Imagine this. You are reading a weightlifting blogger. He has great material, but you have seen similar stuff. Then you get an email and discover his techniques are featured in GQ. Suddenly you see him in a new light and are more likely to engage with him.

     

  • You Drive Targeted Leads: Guest posting is a great way to reach people specifically interested in what you offer. Ads are powerful, and so is SEO, but driving warm leads from a verified authority is one of the quickest ways to grow a responsive list.

Guest posting is important: It is a way to invest time over money and get ongoing results. Let’s review the final strategy you can do to get your site to rank higher on Google. Let’s cover erasing broken links. 

3) Erasing Broken Links 

Links break. We see it all the time. You are surfing a site, find a link, click it, and you end up in some randomly generated ‘sorry but we aren’t here right now’ crash page. It happens. Sites shut down, blogs change their pages, etc.

Google doesn’t like this. Google will lower your ranking if you have broken links. You need to go through your site and check each link. If a link is broken or unresponsive, remove it. Keeping your content up to date will ensure that your site is user responsive.

Do You Need Shopify SEO Help?

Is ranking high on Google, drive Shopify SEO to get you ‘free’ traffic a priority?
Do you want to unleash organic traffic, and get your Shopify Store in front of as many qualified customers as possible?

The team at BlackbeltCommerce is here to help you!  Tell us about your project!  We will help get your organic traffic pulsing and raising… 

Who We Are & What We Do?

We get asked this question all the time…

We are Black Belt Commerce, we are a diverse team of Shopify SEO experts with skills to help you succeed with your online E-commerce Shopify Store.

We specialize in the following strategies:

* Conduct expert niche research for any field

* Optimize SEO ranking based on your service or product

* Help you rank at the top of Google using our own proven strategies, which include targeted keywords and content recommendations

* Find the virtual places your potential audience goes

* Deliver hyper-targeted guest posts that grow organic ‘free’ traffic

* Find and eradicate broken links

* Create linkable assets other sites are hungry to share

* And we will monitor your business growth as it was our own!  We are your partners in business.

Here at Blackbelt Commerce, we deliver the results you need by combining our powerful team, using industry-leading tools, mining in-depth reviews of competitor’s backlinks, and figuring out precisely what sites to tap to build linkable assets and guest posts.

Are We The Right Shopify Expert For You?

The truth is, we are not right for everyone. We are a highly devoted team of traffic driving gurus. That means certain people don’t like our system. Here at BlackBelt Commerce, we not only work hard, but we also do in-depth work. That is how we help Shopify store e-commerce platform owners get results. Results aren’t for everyone. Here is a shortlist of who we are not right for.

Who We Are Not Right For:

• Owners who don’t want a busy business
• People afraid of growth
• Store owners who think marketing is dirty
• Store owners who are afraid of handling lots of clients

So Who Are We Right For?

• Are you a Shopify Store owner who wants more traffic?
  
• Do you want a good flow of fresh leads, interested readers, and customers primed to buy?
  
• Are you ready to take your business to the next level?
• Do you have what it takes to not only stand out from your competitors but also raise the bar so high they could never reach it?
• Do you have the drive to take your success and make it work for you?

If so, then we can help you increase your Google ranking, multiply your free organic SEO traffic, see if you fit for a free trial, and drive new traffic, contact us at 516-704-9890 or Tell us about your project here

Thank you for keeping up to date with our Shopify Insider Blog @ Blackbelt Commerce. We invite you to check out our portfolio and other terrific blog articles on Learn about SEO, Social Media, BigCommerce developer, and utilities such as how to Improve Customer Experience or Backup your store ,  the 3 Shopify designs mistakes to avoid. We are Blackbelt Commerce, a TOP Shopify Expert, and BigCommerce Developers.

February 9th 2021

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