Is Shopify Good For SEO?

Is Shopify Good For SEO?

However, as Shopify SEO experts, we can tell you that Shopify has limitations that can impact your SEO. As a closed platform, this means that you do not have as much control over your store’s code and structure as you would with open-source platforms.

With this in mind, is Shopify good for SEO? Let’s take a more in-depth look.

Shopify Features That Drive SEO: Pros

Generate XML Sitemap

Easy SSL Setup

An SSL certificate also adds trust and credibility for your customers. When they see that your site is secure, they are more likely to make a purchase.

Google also gives a ranking boost to sites that have an SSL certificate. They view this as a sign that the site is credible and trustworthy.

Shopify makes it easy to set up SSL on your store. Shopify provides free TLS (Transport Layer Security) certificates for all stores. These certificates are automatically renewed and installed for you. You can also buy an SSL certificate from a third-party provider and install it on your Shopify store.

SSL plays a role in SEO in the following ways:

• Boost in search engine rankings: Google has stated that they give preference to websites that have an SSL certificate installed.
• Increased click-through rates: Users are more likely to click on a website that has a green padlock in the address bar.

Customer trust: When visitors see that your site is secure, they are more likely to stay on your site and convert into customers.

Enable 301 redirects

Once you have set up your 301 redirects, any traffic that goes to the old URL will be automatically redirected to the new URL. This ensures that you don’t lose any traffic or SEO value when you change the structure of your website.

Auto Canonicals

Store Speed

At GoldenWeb, we take site speed very seriously. We know that it’s important for SEO and for the user experience. Therefore, apart from these inbuilt features, we also do the following to ensure your store stands out from the competition:

• Deferring JavaScript loading: We defer the loading of some JavaScript files until after the initial page load. This means that your pages can start rendering without waiting for all the JavaScript to be downloaded.
• Leverage browser caching: We leverage browser caching to improve the loading speed of your pages. This means that visitors who have been to your site before will see faster loading times on subsequent visits.
• Remove render-blocking resources: We optimize your CSS delivery so that your pages can start rendering without waiting for all the CSS to be downloaded.
• Enable gzip compression: Gzip is a type of compression that reduces the file size of your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files. This helps your pages load faster for visitors.

When combined, these optimization techniques result in faster page loading times and a better user experience. This, in turn, can lead to higher rankings in the search results.

Google Analytics Integration

Shopify will then automatically send data about your store’s traffic and conversions to your Google Analytics account. This data can be very useful for understanding how visitors interact with your store and deciding where to focus your marketing efforts.

Built-in SEO Plugin and Redirects Option

Mobile-Friendly and Responsive Themes

Responsive themes are also important for the user experience. Visitors using a mobile device should have a positive experience when visiting your store. This theme will ensure they can easily navigate your store and find the information they’re looking for.

But does changing a Shopify theme affect SEO? You need to remember not all themes are created with SEO in mind. If you want to change your theme and maintain your SEO, choosing a theme optimized for SEO is important. A theme optimized for SEO is lightweight, meaning it doesn’t use excessive code that can slow down your pages.

It also uses clean code that adheres to web standards. This allows search engine crawlers to easily index your content. It should have a rich snippet option that allows you to control how your products appear in the search results.

Basic Structured Data

A Wide Range of SEO Apps

Problems to Expect: Cons

Now that we have looked at the good side of Shopify, it’s time to take a look at some of the problems you might face in terms of SEO.

No Option to Edit Sitemaps

Even though the autogenerated sitemap is good, it would be better if you could edit it. This would give you more control over which pages are included in the sitemap and how often they’re updated.

Being able to edit your sitemap would also be useful if you wanted to exclude certain pages from being indexed, such as your shopping cart or checkout page.

Shopify doesn’t currently allow you to edit your sitemap, so this is something to keep in mind if you’re considering using Shopify for your store. This means you have to rely on the autogenerated sitemap, which might not be ideal for your store. To remove a page from your sitemap, you have to edit the code in your robots.txt file.

Not Easy to Noindex Pages

If you want to noindex a page, you have to edit the code in your theme.liquid file. This can be tricky for people who are not comfortable editing code.

It would be much easier if you could noindex a page from within the Shopify admin area. This would allow you to quickly and easily noindex pages without having to edit code.

Shopify doesn’t make it easy to noindex pages, so this is something to keep in mind if you’re considering using Shopify for your store. This means you have to be comfortable editing code or hire someone who can do it for you.

Default Pagination, Filters, and Tags Are Indexed

Pagination is when you break up your content into multiple pages. For example, if you have a blog post with 50 comments, you might paginate it so that there are five comments per page.

Filters are used to help people find what they’re looking for on your website. For example, if you have a clothing store, you might have filters for size, color, and style.

Tags are keywords that you can add to your products or blog posts. They help people find related content on your website.

Shopify doesn’t currently noindex pagination, filters, and tags by default. This can cause problems because it means that these pages can be indexed by search engines even though they don’t have much content.

This can result in low-quality pages appearing in the search results. Additionally, it can cause problems with duplicate content.

To fix this, we like to first analyze the pages using Google Search Console. This allows us to see all the low-quality pages that have been indexed. Additionally, it helps us identify specific pages with a significant amount of traffic so we can take appropriate action.

Once we have a list of the pages that need to be noindexed, we add a noindex tag to the code of those pages. This tells search engines not to index those pages.

We also add a canonical tag to those pages. This tells search engines which page is the original and should be indexed.

Default URL Structure Is Not Optimized

The URL structure is the way that your URLs are organized. For example, the URL structure of your website might look like this:

example.com/category/product

The problem with this URL structure is that it’s not optimized for SEO. A better URL structure would be:

example.com/product-name

This URL structure is more optimized because it includes the keyword you’re trying to rank for. Additionally, it’s shorter and easier to remember.

Shopify doesn’t currently have an optimized URL structure. This can cause problems because your URLs are not as effective as they could be.

The URL structure is one of the potential growth opportunities we identify when we do an SEO audit for a Shopify store. We take a look at the current URL structure and make recommendations for how it can be improved. Then we work with you to implement those changes.

Duplicate Content Is Unavoidable

When using Shopify, it can be difficult to avoid duplicate content. This is because Shopify creates multiple versions of the same page.

For example, if you have a product that comes in multiple sizes, there will be a separate page for each size. This can create problems because it means there is duplicate content on your website.

Duplicate content can hurt your SEO because it confuses search engines. They don’t know which version of the page to index. As a result, your pages are less likely to rank.

Google also penalizes websites with duplicate content. This means that the store you have worked so hard to build could be at risk of being banned from Google.

At GoldenWeb, we take duplicate content seriously. We use an array of tools, such as Screaming Frog, to help us identify duplicate content on your website. Once we have a list of the pages that need to be fixed, we add canonical tags (rel=“canonical”) to those pages. We also add no index tags to any pages that don’t need to be indexed.

Canonical tags tell search engines which page is the original and should be indexed. Noindex tags tell search engines not to index any of the duplicates. By doing this, we ensure your website complies with Google’s guidelines and that your pages are more likely to rank.

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