5 Simple On-Page SEO Updates Anyone Can Do.

unsplash-image-UZqq8Oi7PXk.jpg

Page Title

This is shown below the URL with the largest font size on search results and on the tabs of your browser, which describes what your page is at a glance. Include a clever/intriguing title that is relevant to your page/s and includes your exact keywords-preferably near the beginning of your title, between 55-60 characters.

Description

This is shown below the title on search results and describes what your page is about. Use a relevant summary of your page/s which include your exact keywords and synonyms-preferably near the beginning of your description. It's best to keep meta descriptions long enough that they're sufficiently descriptive, so we recommend descriptions between 50–160 characters, else they get truncated by Google.

How To Edit Your Shopify Title Tags And Meta Descriptions

From the homepage, go to:

  • Online Store > Preferences

  • Enter a homepage title and meta description

For general pages, go to:

  • Online Store > Pages

  • Select a page

  • Enter a page title and meta description

For all products, go to

  • Products

  • Select a product

  • Click on “Edit website SEO” seen at the bottom of the below screenshot:

  • Enter a meta description and edit page title only if necessary

  • Click on “Save”

For collections, go to:

  • Products > Collections

  • Select a collection

  • Click on “Edit website SEO”

  • Enter a page title and meta description

Note: View the source code of the pages to see if each is updated exactly how you want. If it didn’t, you need to edit the template(requires basic coding knowledge).

To view source code:

  • Right-click on a blank area on your page and click on “View Page Source”

  • On the first few lines of the source code, you should see the title and description tags you entered.

Content

Content is King!

Right now, thousands of people are looking for content just like yours and it’s possible that there is the same number of content out there. Over the past years, we were obsessed with a single keyword in an effort to get good search result rankings, but nowadays, the key to crafting amazing content is through context. And for a good reason, over 15% of Google’s daily searches are new terms that users have never searched before. And with trillions of searches being conducted every year, that adds up to a lot of new queries.

You have to focus on what your target customers want. Understanding their “need” is even better and can help you develop content that draws them in. You also have to listen to customer feedback and opinions since these guide the content you create to attract more of them. Use data from your Google Analytics to find out what your readers want, or subscribe to tools such as ATP or Quora to see what questions people ask and you can answer. Another great way to find out what your customers think is to regularly read their comments on your social media posts.

How to Use Google Analytics to Find Out What Customers Want

  • Login to Google Analytics

  • On the left-side menu, click on Behavior > Site Content > All Pages

The total number of page views is important, but also take a look at the average time spent on the page (the higher the better), the bounce rate (the lower the better), and the exit percentage (lower is good).

When writing your content, have your exact keyword/phrases in the first and/or the last paragraph of your article. After that, use synonyms and LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords throughout the rest of your content. Write as much as you can but not too long that it becomes unpleasant to read, especially for product details.

LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords are words and phrases that are closely related to your main keyword. So, using synonyms in your posts can help your article’s SEO ranking, but synonyms aren’t LSI keywords. (eg. a synonym for the word “cup” could be “mug”. However, LSI keywords for “cup” would include terms like winter, breakfast, warm, ceramic, tea, coffee, spill-proof and so on.) A good way to understand the difference between the two is to perform a Google search. The suggested searches that appear in the drop-down are LSI keywords.

Links

This may be the easiest step so far. You just need to make sure your pages’ URL is concise, with your keywords included (uses your title tag by default, modifying your title tag changes this too). If necessary you can update your URL by following the same steps above on how to edit your Shopify tags for all products.

It would also be a great idea to link words and phrases to related pages within your website or high-quality external sites related to your topic/product. Internal linking is the best practice and the first step in link-building techniques. External linking can help Google understand your content better and possibly generate good inbound links in the future(avoid competitor websites when linking externally). It is advised to subscribe to forums, wikis and social platforms (don’t forget YouTube!) to enable you to create profiles and posts that link back to your website’s pages.

Images

Images are a good way to ensure that your content is more accessible, attractive, and engaging to your customers. Most people like visual presentations of the topic and some prefer without texts, but images with ‘text and image ratio of 1:5’ are also good (texts act like subtitles).

The best way to utilise your page images is for SEO. You should optimise them for both the human and AI perspective. This reinforces the overall topic of your page for search engines.

How to optimise your images

  • Pick the right file format. PNG, JPEG, and GIF are all popular. Each has its benefits but we recommend JPEG for images with lots of colour and PNG for simple images. Save your images in different file types and compression rates to see what works best for each image, while keeping it at approx. 350kb file size for faster loading speed.

  • Use the right file name and image titles, the same way you would write your page titles mentioned above.

  • Add an alternative text aka ‘alt tags’ to your images, go to:

    • Products

    • Select a product

    • Scroll down to Media and click on image or “Add Media” as seen on the below screenshot:

    • Click on “Add Alt text”

    • Add and click on “Save alt text”

  • Although stock photos are great, these are not great for SEO. In the same way that unique written content is better for SEO, it’s a good idea to upload unique images whenever possible.

  • If possible, link your homepage images to their respective landing pages.

Previous
Previous

You Don’t Have to Be an Expert to Write A Great Blog Post

Next
Next

Why Your Business Needs to Start Making Vertical Video for Social Media.