After a long, hot summer, the fall season has finally arrived. That means Thanksgiving — and more importantly for those in the retail and eCommerce sales spaces, Black Friday — will be here before you know it! That’s why we’re here to discuss how to optimize your SEO on Shopify.
Is your Shopify store ready for the deluge of Black Friday shoppers who will hit to take advantage of your sale? Are you worried about how to stand out on this busy shopping day and draw people to your eCommerce site? Unsure how to optimize your SEO on Shopify?
The first step to leveling up your online presence is a solid search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.
Not sure how to create an effective SEO plan? This guide explains everything you need to know to optimize your SEO on Shopify ahead of the Black Friday sales.
Why Optimizing Your SEO Matters on Shopify
As great as Shopify is, it’s now a magic solution. The success of your Shopify store still depends mainly on your ability to draw in internet users and convince them to buy your products or services.
If you can’t separate your Shopify store’s website from the over 1.7 billion websites on the internet, you’ll struggle to succeed, especially during busy periods like Black Friday weekend. Luckily, SEO can help you improve your website, rank higher on search engine results pages, and increase traffic.
Here are some specific benefits SEO offers:
- Prioritizing SEO improves your site’s user experience and helps people find what they need quickly.
- SEO increases your website’s relevance and ensures you show up in search results right when people need products or services like yours.
- SEO helps you stand out from the crowd and bring in more website visitors than your competitors.
- You can boost eCommerce sales and improve your business’s bottom line by attracting more visitors to your site and providing them with a positive experience.
Some marketers are tempted to skip SEO because they think it’s too complicated or time-consuming. However, considering the results a good SEO strategy provides, it makes sense to invest time and resources to perfect and maintain your approach.
9 Essential Tips to Optimize Your SEO on Shopify Store Owners
The more you learn about SEO, the more you understand why it matters. If you want to increase holiday sale profits during Black Friday weekend, read the nine helpful SEO tips that will provide excellent results below:
1. Evaluate Your Audience
To win people over and encourage them to buy from you on Black Friday, you need to know who makes up your target audience. What kind of person do you want visiting your Shopify store while they decompress from Thanksgiving dinner?
Clarify your target audience early so you can make decisions that appeal to them. Otherwise, your hard work might not yield the outcomes you want.
2. Ditch Duplicate Content
Duplicate content is a massive no-no in the SEO world. External duplication (meaning you copied and pasted content from another website) is particularly problematic.
Use an anti-plagiarism tool like Copyscape to ensure your website content doesn’t too closely resemble content on any other websites.
If you find duplicates, edit your content to be unique. If you suspect someone copied you (perhaps they cut corners while preparing for their Black Friday sale), reach out to the website owner and ask them to change their content.
3. Update Page Titles and Meta Descriptions
Your eCommerce site’s page titles and meta descriptions (a summary of the page’s contents) play a crucial role in your search engine rankings.
Both the title and description should include relevant keywords. Think about words and phrases people might use when searching for products or services like the ones you sell. Then, incorporate them strategically in your title and meta description.
While preparing for Black Friday, you may want to include Black Friday-specific keywords in your titles, meta descriptions, and webpage copy. For example, if you sell beauty products, you might use keywords like “Black Friday moisturizer sale” or “Black Friday skincare deals.”
SEO best practices dictate that titles should be no more than 60 characters. Meta descriptions should contain no more than 160 characters.
4. Prioritize Technical SEO
You can use all the right keywords and have intriguing titles and meta descriptions, but if you don’t prioritize technical SEO, you’ll struggle to see results from your efforts.
Technical SEO involves updating the backend of your website to load faster, making your content easier to read, and helping Google’s bots crawl your site and rank it appropriately.
Start by testing your site’s load times. If it seems slow, consider compressing files or removing unnecessary elements to speed things up. You should also update your web pages with clear headings, bullet point lists, and short sentences/paragraphs to make content easier to read.
5. Install the Product Review App
Shopify’s Product Review App allows customers to leave product reviews and enables you to display those reviews on your store.
Reviews provide your website’s visitors with more information on your products or services and can encourage those who are on the fence to go ahead and make a purchase. Reviews also add credibility to your Shopify store and show shoppers that your offerings are legitimate.
6. Blog Consistently
Does your Shopify store have a blog? If not, the first step is to create one. Blogging is an incredible way to reach a larger audience, provide value to potential customers, and get them interested in the products or services you sell.
If you have a blog but haven’t published content regularly, now is the time to start.
Regular blogging (mainly if your blog posts contain relevant keywords and answer questions your audience likely has) boosts your search engine ranking partly by giving Google’s bots more pages to crawl.
Want even more bang for your blogging buck? Publish some Black Friday or holiday-centered blog posts to attract more attention and encourage internet users to check out your upcoming Black Friday sale.
7. Create Holiday-Specific Landing Pages
In addition to holiday-specific blog posts, create some holiday-specific landing pages. Designing landing pages to advertise your Black Friday sales or other upcoming holiday deals is an excellent way to improve your ranking and get people excited about what you’re offering.
8. Encourage Social Sharing
Social sharing is an excellent tool for brands that want to expand their audiences, gain credibility, and boost sales. The easier it is for people to share directly from your website, the more likely you will experience these benefits.
Shopify makes adding social sharing buttons to your web pages quite simple. Once you add these buttons, shoppers can share their latest purchases (or your latest blog post) with their friends and followers almost instantly.
Remember to pay attention to people who have shared content from your website on social media. When you see someone sharing your content, thank them and give them a shout-out on your social media stories.
9. Partner with a Marketing Agency with Social Media Expertise
Did you read through the list of SEO tips above and start panicking, wondering how you will find time to do everything in preparation for Black Friday? If so, working with a digital marketing agency is one of the best ways to save time and your sanity.
You gain access to superior social media network marketing services when you work with an agency.
A team of experts will do the heavy lifting for you and help you create social media and SEO campaigns that boost your online rankings and attract more traffic to your website. You’ll also get ongoing support to ensure your SEO and online marketing strategies remain effective.
Tips for Choosing a Social Media Agency
If you’ve never worked with an agency before, look for one that offers paid media services and has experience with Shopify stores. It’s even better if they also have experience in blog post writing and influencer marketing.
Before you trust an agency to help you with your Shopify SEO, check out their virtual portfolio. Looking at some of their past work will help you assess their style and determine if it lines up with your goals and preferences.
If you’re concerned about the cost of hiring an agency, remember that professionals can save you money in the long run and produce better results.
Keep in mind, too, that many social media agencies offer plans that work for various budgets. Look for a budget calculator or pricing page to find an agency with prices that work for you.
Use SEO to Boost Holiday Sales
Are you ready to set records this holiday season? You can make that happen with proper planning and a carefully designed SEO strategy.
If you’re still feeling confused about where to start regarding how to optimize your SEO on Shopify, we’re here for you at Socialistics.
Our social media agency is run by seasoned professionals who are well-versed in Shopify, paid media advertising, and much more in the digital marketing world. We’ve worked with well-known brands like Starfire Direct and Schmitty’s Herbal Snuff, and we can’t wait to work with you!
Contact us today to start getting real results from a social media agency that really knows what we’re doing.
