Shopify is a behemoth when it comes to e-commerce development. The platform is quite simple for beginners and advanced enough for established businesses, as it doesn’t take much effort to get started. The ease of use and simple interface are probably the biggest USPs of Shopify. But does it make Shopify the best e-commerce platform? What about its SEO capabilities? When we searched – ‘Is Shopify Good for SEO?’ on the internet, we got confusing answers. While some claim it to be the best e-commerce platform for SEO, others have termed it the worst for the same. 

While developing an online Shopify store, developers generally take care of basic SEO aspects, like sitemaps, metadata, and robots.txt. However, that doesn’t make it fully compatible with SEO. There is a common misconception among businesses that Shopify stores don’t get as much visibility as WordPress websites. Is that true? Let’s bust this myth!

To help our readers decide whether Shopify is good for SEO or not, we have come up with this detailed analysis of where Shopify shines and where it lacks in terms of SEO compatibility. 

So, let’s get started!

Key Statistics Showcasing the Importance of Shopify SEO

• 87% of shoppers tend to start their search for the product online. (Source: Retail Dive)
• Online stores get more than 80% of successful sales. (Source: Shopify) 
• The average conversion rate for Shopify stores is around 1.6%. (Source: Littledata)
• Shopify stores focusing on SEO tend to see a higher conversion rate, with organic traffic converting at 3.6%. (Source: Shopify)
• SEO professionals understand the importance of link building, with 42% dedicating equal time to creating both internal and external links. (Source: Databox)
• Mobile users are a major traffic driver to Shopify stores, with some data suggesting that as much as 79% of traffic comes from mobile devices. (Source: Shopifyandyou)

Shopify SEO: The Areas Where It Shines

Undoubtedly, Shopify is an SEO-friendly e-commerce platform offering both basic and advanced SEO functionalities that are enough to increase the visibility of your online store on SERP. 

Here are some of the SEO advantages of Shopify: 

#1. Automated Sitemap Generation

Shopify streamlines your SEO efforts by automatically creating a sitemap file that lists all URLs of your site. This sitemap is dynamic, updating itself with every change you make to your store, enhancing the way search engines navigate and catalog your content. 

You can access it at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. After verifying your website with Google Search Console, you can submit this sitemap to Google for improved indexing.

#2. Simplified SSL Certification

Shopify simplifies securing your website with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), a security protocol that encrypts data between your server and visitors, thwarting hackers. Google favors SSL-certified sites, considering them more secure and reliable. 

Shopify provides free TLS (Transport Layer Security) certificates, which are the modern standard, and renews and applies them automatically. Alternatively, you can procure an SSL certificate from an external source and integrate it with your Shopify store. 

SSL certification boosts your search rankings, encourages more clicks due to visible security indicators, and builds customer confidence, leading to better conversion rates.

#3. Seamless 301 Redirects

When you change your site’s structure or shift domains, Shopify’s 301 redirect feature ensures a smooth transition. These permanent redirects transfer nearly all the SEO value from the old URL to the new one. Setting up 301 redirects in Shopify is straightforward:

• Navigate to Online Store > Navigation in your Shopify admin.
• Click ‘Add URL redirect’ in the URL Redirects section.
• Input the former URL in the ‘From’ field and the new URL in the ‘To’ field.
• Hit ‘Save’.

With these redirects in place, visitors are seamlessly directed to the new URLs, ensuring you don’t lose all the traffic and SEO efforts. 

#4. Auto Canonicals

Canonical tags are HTML tags that inform search engines which URL is the authoritative version of a page. This is crucial because a single page can have multiple versions on your website.

Shopify automatically adds canonical tags to all pages on your store, ensuring that search engines always recognize the authoritative URL.

#5. Store Speed

Shopify enhances store speed in several ways:

• CDN: A content delivery network (CDN) delivers your store’s assets from servers worldwide, speeding up page delivery for distant visitors.
• Asset compression: Shopify compresses CSS, JavaScript, and image files to reduce their size, resulting in faster page loading.
• Lazy loading: Images load as visitors view them, minimizing initial load time.
• WebP image conversion: Shopify automatically converts images to WebP format, offering lossless compression and faster loading times than JPEG.

#6. Google Analytics Integration

Setting up Google Analytics with Shopify is seamless. Add your Google Analytics tracking code to your store, and Shopify will send traffic and conversion data to your account. This helps you understand visitor behavior and refine your marketing strategy.

#7. Built-in SEO Plugin and Redirects

Shopify’s built-in SEO plugin simplifies editing store titles and meta tags. It also generates an XML sitemap for Google submission. The redirects feature allows you to redirect traffic from one URL to another, useful for transitioning from old to new URLs or handling non-existent pages. The SEO plugin provides additional features like controlling URL structure and adding alt text to images. 

#8. Mobile-Friendly and Responsive Themes

Shopify themes are designed to be responsive, meaning they automatically adjust their layout to fit any device’s screen size. This is crucial because Google’s mobile-first indexing prioritizes the mobile version of your site when determining rankings. A seamless mobile experience can significantly affect your site’s SEO and user engagement.

#9. Basic Structured Data

 Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content. Shopify simplifies the addition of structured data so search engines can easily understand and display information like product details, reviews, and prices. This can enhance your visibility in search results and improve click-through rates.

#10. A Wide Range of SEO Apps

Shopify’s app store offers various SEO tools that can assist with various aspects of your site’s optimization. These apps can help you create rich snippets for better search result display, manage image alt texts for improved accessibility, fix broken links to enhance user experience and perform keyword research to target the right audience. 

They also help generate XML sitemaps for better indexing and set up redirects to maintain link equity. While some apps are free, others offer free trials, allowing users to test their functionality before committing financially.

Shopify SEO: The Areas Where It Needs Improvements

While Shopify offers many SEO benefits, there are a couple of areas where it falls short:

#1. Limited Sitemap Customization

Shopify’s sitemap is auto-generated, which ensures basic SEO hygiene by default. However, the inability to edit the sitemap means you lack control over which pages are indexed and their update frequency.

 To exclude pages from the sitemap, you must edit the robots.txt file, which can be a complex task for those unfamiliar with website coding. This limitation can be significant for stores with specific SEO strategies that require more customized sitemap management.

#2. Complex ‘Noindex’ Process

The ‘noindex’ tag is crucial for telling search engines not to show certain pages in search results. On Shopify, adding this tag isn’t user-friendly; it requires editing the theme.liquid file. 

This can be a barrier for store owners without coding expertise, potentially necessitating additional costs to hire a Shopify developer. For businesses that need to frequently update their ‘noindex’ tags, this complexity could pose ongoing challenges.

#3. Indexing of Standard Pagination, Filters, and Tags

When you divide your content across several pages, it’s called pagination. Take a blog post with numerous comments as an example; you might choose to display only a handful of comments on each page.

Currently, Shopify doesn’t automatically apply a ‘noindex’ to pagination, filters, or tags. This oversight can lead to these less content-rich pages being indexed by search engines, potentially filling search results with low-quality pages. It also raises the issue of content duplication.

#4. Suboptimal Default URL Configuration

The arrangement of your URLs, known as the URL structure, is not ideally set up for search engine optimization (SEO) in Shopify’s default settings.

A more SEO-friendly URL structure would include targeted keywords and be concise and memorable. With an optimized URL structure, your URLs may perform better than they could.

Identifying and enhancing the URL structure is a key part of our SEO audit for Shopify stores. We evaluate your current setup and suggest improvements, then assist you in implementing these enhancements.

#5. The Challenge of Duplicate Content

Shopify’s system can inadvertently create multiple versions of the same page, leading to duplicate content. This duplication can negatively impact your SEO by confusing search engines about which page version to index, reducing the likelihood of your pages ranking well.

Moreover, Google penalizes sites with duplicate content, which could jeopardize your store’s presence on the search engine.

Utilizing canonical tags helps search engines identify the original page to index, while noindex tags prevent indexing of duplicate pages. Implementing these tags is crucial to align with Google’s guidelines and improve your pages’ chances of ranking.

Conclusion – Is Shopify Good for SEO?

So there you have it. Shopify brings a suite of SEO advantages. Yet, it’s not without limitations, including a lack of built-in product review options, inflexible URL structures, and basic blogging functionalities.

Despite these challenges, numerous Shopify stores have managed to position themselves at the top of SERP rankings. They’ve done this by adhering to SEO best practices, avoiding typical SEO pitfalls, and integrating robust SEO applications.

With the right strategy, Shopify’s features can be harnessed to enhance your online store’s visibility in search engine results, turning potential weaknesses into strengths.

Despite Shopify’s SEO capabilities, you might still need professional help from the best Shopify development company for increased visibility. At Shopify App Developers, we perform a comprehensive SEO audit that identifies critical technical SEO and CRO issues. We then provide you with a prioritized list of recommendations so you can take your Shopify store to the next level.

FAQs

Do Shopify Tags Improve SEO?

Shopify tags can enhance SEO by organizing content and improving the user experience. They help search engines understand the structure and content of your store, which can contribute to better indexing. However, they should be used judiciously to avoid creating duplicate content.

How to do SEO through Shopify?

SEO on Shopify involves optimizing your store’s content, structure, and meta tags. Utilize keywords effectively, ensure your site is mobile-friendly, and improve loading speeds—additionally, leverage Shopify’s built-in SEO features and apps to enhance your store’s search engine visibility.

Is Shopify as Good as WordPress for SEO?

Shopify competes well with WordPress in terms of SEO. While WordPress offers extensive SEO plugins, Shopify’s built-in SEO features are robust for e-commerce. The choice depends on your specific needs and whether you prioritize e-commerce functionality or a broader range of SEO customizations.

What is the Best SEO Tool for Shopify?

The best SEO tool for Shopify is subjective and depends on your store’s needs. However, apps like SEO Manager or Plug-in SEO are popular choices. They offer features like keyword suggestions, SEO issue identification, and automated fixes to common problems.

Is SEO Difficult in Shopify?

SEO in Shopify is not inherently difficult; it’s about understanding the platform’s capabilities. With Shopify’s user-friendly interface and SEO-focused features, even beginners can implement effective SEO strategies. However, like any platform, it requires continuous learning and adaptation to SEO best practices.

Is Shopify SEO Ready?

Shopify is SEO-ready, offering features like customizable headings, titles, and meta descriptions. It also automatically generates sitemaps and has a clean, crawlable codebase. To maximize SEO, you should still perform regular audits and optimizations.