Getting listed on the first page of Google search results can easily get small businesses off the ground. In this article, we will mainly deal with the first of the pillars of SEO for online stores: keywords. We’ll explain how to find and use them to give them maximum impact, using a few Shopify stores as an example.
The second page of Google will give you access to only 33% of the total searches performed. The following pages of search results have even lower coverage rates. The further your store’s SEO is from the first place, the more the rates decrease.
The first page of Google is, therefore, a key element and your site must absolutely appear there. Keywords are pillars of SEO and must be paramount in:
- the management of Adwords campaigns,
- the process of bringing customers to your store.
Define keywords
Keywords are the backbone of your e-commerce business. They affect how search engines reference your store and thus how your customers can find it. Keywords are mostly connected short terms, which allow search engines to track your page quickly to deliver accurate search results when those terms are searched by internet users.
Although they allow you to be visible to a greater number of Internet users, the most popular search terms imply very strong competition since they are very coveted. It will therefore be profitable to focus your keywords on key selling points or to provide search strings. Although this will reduce the number of potential visitors, your customers will be more likely to find your store when they search for a specific product.
Take the example of a company specializing in the sale of band t-shirts (t-shirts with the image of groups) for women.
By using Google’s Keyword Manager (in AdWords), you will be able to see the volume of searches performed for each term. You will see how the use of very precise and specific terms reduces the number of searches. But remember that less traffic volume is not necessarily a bad thing. It is better to appear in the first position of the results for a term corresponding exactly to a product of your store, rather than to appear in the 35th position of Google for a very popular and competitive generic term.
Effective keyword research tools:
- Google Keyword Planner – useful for analyzing sites with high search volumes: adwords.google.com/keywordplanner
- SpyFu – a very handy utility to find out what keywords your competitors are using: www.spyfu.com
- Keyword tool.io – site that offers nearly 750 free keywords: keywordtool.io
Now that you know which keywords to use and how many queries they generate, you need to add these keywords to 5 strategic locations in your Shopify store:
1. Titles of pages and articles
The first place Google looks for keywords is the title of a page or post. Each of the pages on your website should have a unique title made up of distinct keywords. Page titles are placed at the top of web browsers and search engine results pages. These titles summarize the content of each page and are decisive if you want to increase the rate of clicks obtained.
You will be used to encountering these elements whatever the nature of your request on Google or Bing. Approximately 65 characters – including abstract – should be included, and be sure to include the most optimal keywords through understandable sentences. You can see how the overview of the different page titles looks in Google, through the example of Shopify.
2. Content Descriptions
Descriptions, also known as “meta-descriptions”, also appear in search results, below URL titles.
Meta descriptions do not affect your ranking on search engine pages. However, the rules of use oblige us to write them in a “human” way, intended for real people, and in such a way as to provide more information about your online store. This will be useful especially if the store name is identical to that of another brand or store in any sector. Separate meta descriptions can help avoid any confusion.
So change and adapt your meta-descriptions for each of your main pages, and you will get a result similar to that of Shopify.
3. URLs
The use of URLs is essential to promote your products. It’s a good idea to create an individual URL for each product page that covers the main search terms so consumers can find your store whenever they search for a product you sell. Skinnydip, Shopify’s flagship store, is a good example of an e-commerce site using URLs for product promotion.
The URL at the top of this product page ( www.skinnydiplondon.com/collections/bags/backpack ) contains additional keywords such as backpack to specify the type of bags on sale. You can see that all the products corresponding to this keyword, namely backpacks, are listed on this page. It is possible to come across this page by browsing the site from the home page, from the product category pages, or by typing the terms “ Skinnydip Backpack ” directly into Google. The URL can thus redirect to the content corresponding exactly to what the customer is looking for, at the right time.
4. Paragraph titles
Your Shopify store homepage should contain a concise and relevant reproduction of keywords and phrases to use for SEO. Including keywords in your content is used by Google as an SEO tool, so it can help improve your store’s rank in search results.
Always write a text with the idea in mind that a human being can read it. Indeed, some fallacious SEO strategies such as keyword stuffing are heavily sanctioned by Google search engines, which will reduce your credibility on the web and degrade your position (ranking) in the referrals.
So write your text in a natural way, creating content that really focuses on the needs of your customers, and not adding a multitude of keywords without any consistency.
5. Image names and alternate text
Although their added value to the SEO of the site is debatable, it is always good to assign relevant names to the images according to their content, by adding alt text. The alt text or alternate text designates a text that appears instead of the image on a page or an email when the display is deactivated by the user or by default by the mailbox.
Alt text helps Google recognize what the image is made of or refers to, making it easier to SEO. But this option also exists for a completely different reason, which is to help the visually impaired. In each online store content writing interface, the space intended to integrate alt text must be comprised of short and understandable sentences and faithfully describing the images rather than a stack of keywords.
Some Shopify sites integrating the voice assistant function will thus be able to allow visually impaired people to listen aloud to this description of the image from the alt text. They also make it easier for Internet users to understand them.
