soar-digital

5 Common Shopify SEO Issues & How to Fix Them

james@forward-linking.com (James Johnson) — Sat, 04 Sep 2021 12:09:25 GMT

James Johnson

Owner & Founder

SOAR Digital

One of the most attractive features of Shopify is the fact that it's incredibly user-friendly and easy to set up for beginners. However, there are some technical Shopify SEO issues that you need to be aware of if you're really serious about growing your organic traffic.

Once these Shopify SEO problems are resolved, you can unleash the true potential of your store as Google will be able to crawl, index and rank your store more efficiently.

In this article, I'm going to go over how to fix some of the most common Shopify SEO problems that may be holding your site back from ranking in Google.

First, we need to identify...

What are some of the most common Shopify SEO issues?

Duplicate content caused by 'tagged' products on collection pages
Product links set to non-canonical URL on category pages
Duplicate page titles
Inability to edit tag pages
'Tagged' blog posts creating thin archive pages
Locked robots.txt (Updated 2021 - now you can!)
Forced URL structure
No trailing slash redirect
Basic On Page Elements Missing by Default
Slow Speeds and Bad Crawl Rates

Let's explore the most important Shopify SEO problems and how to fix them...

1. Duplicate Content Caused by Tagged Collection Pages

When adding new products to your catalogue, you may have noticed the option to add a 'tag' to your product.

This is a great feature to use across your products as it allows the user to filter through hundreds of products on your collection pages with ease. However, this feature actually creates a new collection URL for every single tag that you've created.

For example, if you have a collection page for 'mens shoes':

examplesite.com/collections/ mens-shoes

Then you create a tag to denote the colour of each shoe in this collection, you're going to end up with multiple versions of the same page. Like this:

examplesite.com/collections/ mens-shoes/blue

examplesite.com/collections/ mens-shoes/white

examplesite.com/collections/ mens-shoes/green

Even though the products will vary across each of these collection pages, the content of the page (such as headings, titles, meta data) will remain the same.

Therefore, leading to duplicate content issues for your site as Google has multiple versions of each page to crawl, index and rank.

How to fix the duplicate content issue

The easiest fix is to make use of collection pages instead of filters. So in the above example, you could have a collection page for red men's shoes, blue men's shoes, green men's shoes and all men's shoes, without the need for tagged products.

However, this isn't always a plausible option if you've got hundreds of product categories and you don't want to hinder the user experience with huge mega menus and no way to filter through vast amounts of products.

So, if you still need to use the tagged products for the filter you can either:

Use a filtering app from the Shopify App store that uses ajax or json code to dynamically sort through products instead of creating a new URL for each tag like the standard Shopify filtering system.
Make use of 'canonical code' in order to show Google that the simplest, non-tagged version of the collection page is the one you want to rank in the search engine ( recommended method ).
Create individual rules for meta titles and meta descriptions in your Shopify theme to dynamically update for 'tagged' collection pages ( not recommended as the collection description will still be duplicate, even if the meta data is different ).

2. Product links set to non-canonical URL structure on collection pages

When you visit a collection page on your site, take a moment to copy and paste the URL from your product images and product titles. You'll most likely notice that the URL's are long and are structured like so:

yoursite.com/ collections/hats/products/baseball-cap

In this instance, your collection pages are linking to product URL's that aren't meant to be ranking in the search engines. These longer URL's have both 'collections' and 'products' within the URL are in fact canonicalised to the shorter version of the URL, like this:

yoursite.com/ products/baseball-cap

(without any mention of the collection)

Put simply, the basic setup for a Shopify site is contradictory, because the sitemap and canonical code tell Google that it's the shorter version of the URL that should be indexed and ranked in the search results.

However, all of the collection pages link to alternative versions of each product URL, this is amplified if your product is present on various collection pages (ie a baseball cap could come under 'hats', 'clothing', 'mens' or 'accessories' collection pages all on one site).

Sitemap references this version:

yoursite.com/ products/baseball-cap

Canonical code references this version:

yoursite.com/ products/baseball-cap

Multiple version of the product URL linked on separate collection pages:

yoursite.com/collections/ hats/products/baseball-cap

yoursite.com/collections/ clothing/products/baseball-cap

yoursite.com/collections/ mens/products/baseball-cap

yoursite.com/collections/ accessories/products/baseball-cap

We want to keep the product link consistent across the entire site and show the shorter URL without any 'collection' in the URL to avoid any confusion.

Whilst there is a piece of canonical code on all of these pages to tell Google 'rank the short version of the product URL' it isn't an absolute rule and it can be ignored by Google (which it often is!).

How to update and fix link structure to the shorter product URL's

Simply navigate to the product-grid-item.liquid snippet in your theme and change the product links from:

<a href="{{ product.url | within: collection }}">

to

<a href="{{ product.url }}">

You may need to do this twice, once to update the product image links and once to update the text link (usually the product title or a prompt such as 'read more').

Important to note:

If you are using breadcrumbs on your site, updating the product link structure on collection pages will usually interfere with this functionality as the breadcrumbs use the URL structure as a basis for the breadcrumb link structure.

You'll need to weigh up what is more important for you and your site. In most cases, if a site uses breadcrumbs we'll just leave the URL structure as-is because it's a useful feature for the user experience.

3. Inability to update or edit robots.txt (2021 Update... now you can!)

The robots.txt file has been inaccessible until very recently. Essentially, it allows you to specify to Google which pages you do not want them to crawl through and index.

Before this update, it was very hard to exclude certain pages from being crawled and indexed, which can lead to a loss of crawl budget for very large sites with thousands of products.

Thankfully, it is now possible to make edits to your robots.txt to sculpt the way in which Google indexes your website. By blocking certain thin pages, you're essentially getting more bang for your buck as Google will spend more time on the pages that actually matter to your site.

How to update the Shopify robots.txt file

All you need to do is upload a new template to your theme titled robots.txt. From this file you can add or subtract lines to meet your requirement.

Check out our full guide on how to update your Shopify robots.txt file for more information on exactly how to do this.

4. Basic on-page SEO elements missing by default

Depending on the theme for your Shopify store, some basic SEO features may be missing or incomplete by default for certain pages across the site.

Most commonly it's on product pages, collection pages and even the homepage where certain on-page SEO attributes are missing such as H1 & H2 tags which denote headings and sub-headings.

In SEO, the H1 heading is used to indicate the main topic/heading of content whereas the H2 tag indicates secondary topics. These two tags should appear at least once per page but ideally the H2's would appear multiple times throughout the body of the page to add context throughout the content.

It is important to use H1 and H2 tags because they help search engines understand the hierarchy of your content better. This helps improve the relevancy of your page for your target keywords, thus improving your rankings and traffic.

How to fix missing on-page SEO elements for your Shopify theme

In order to fix your on-page SEO you'll need to identify which pages on your site aren't set up correctly with headings and subheadings.

You can use a free Google Chrome extension such as SEO Minion to do the heavy lifting for you.

Simply navigate to a page on your site and select 'Analyse on-page SEO' and you'll be able to quickly see which on-page elements are missing or incorrectly assigned.

Next, make your way to your Shopify theme to edit the template responsible for this page type.

Locate the line of code responsible for the heading and add/remove/replace existing heading tags with your preferred tag.

For collection pages ensure the page title is a H1 tag, with product titles being H2 or H3 tags.
For product pages, ensure the product title is a H1 tag, with sub-headings being H2 or H3 tags.

5. Forced URL structure with restricted site hierarchy

The first issue that many shop owners encounter when setting up a new Shopify store is the fact that URLs are not fully customisable. This means that if you want to set up a hierarchal structure that categorises your products and categories into a logical structure, this isn't possible with Shopify in the same way that it is with other platforms like WordPress or Magento.

Instead, all product categories must include /collections/ within the URL and all products must contain /products/ within the URL.

This wouldn't be too much of a problem, but the fact that you can't create more than one subfolder for each of these page types means that Shopify comes with a very flat structure.

For example, a clothing store on Shopify can create pages for each category, like this:

yoursite.com/collections/ hats

yoursite.com/collections/ clothing

yoursite.com/collections/ mens

yoursite.com/collections/ accessories

yoursite.com/collections/ mens-trousers

yoursite.com/collections/ mens-tshirts

yoursite.com/collections/ mens-blue-tshirts

Whereas, a Magento site might structure these same pages in this way:

yoursite.com/ clothing

yoursite.com /clothing/mens

yoursite.com /clothing/mens/hats

yoursite.com /clothing/mens/accessories

yoursite.com /clothing/mens/trousers

yoursite.com /clothing/mens/tshirts/blue

Here's a visual representation created with Screaming frog , where each dot represents a page on the site and the lines represent a new hierarchy in the URL structure.

Shopify site architecture:

Notice how flat the structure is, this makes it hard to associate related products with one another through categorisation. All products can be seen on the right hand side under the products/ sub-folder.

Magento site architecture:

Here you can see how they've been able to drill down further into each product category, with each product being categorised within 2 or sometimes even 3 sub-categories in the URL structure.

This is ideal for SEO purposes because Google loves sites that have well structured content. It helps search engines understand what each section of the website contains, adds contextual relevance to each category and builds up topical authority.

Not to mention, it also improves the user experience and allows link juice (power from backlinks) to pass naturally throughout the site.

How to fix Shopify's site structure

The short answer is, you can't change the way in which the URL's are structured. However, there is a way in which you can show Google which collection pages are connected to one another through internal linking.

This can be done in three ways:

By adding a megamenu to your site that helps to categorise your related categories together
By adding internal links from within the description of your top-level collection pages to related collections with targeted anchor text (ie from the 'mens clothes' page talk about mens tshirts, mens trousers, mens shoes etc and link the text to the appropriate collection page).
By making use of breadcrumbs with schema mark-up to indicate to Google which pages are sub-categories of one another.

Final considerations

Anyway, I hope this helps anyone looking to fix these technical SEO issues for your store. Feel free to reach out to us with any questions.

As a Shopify SEO Agency , we're here if you'd like us to take a look at your Shopify store to increase your organic traffic and sales.

For more information on Shopify why not check out our recent Shopify SEO case study or our recent blog post on optimising Shopify collection pages for SEO .

Stay tuned for more guides, tips & info coming soon!

How to Edit Your Shopify Robots.txt File for Better SEO

james@forward-linking.com (James Johnson) — Mon, 05 Jul 2021 15:27:34 GMT

James Johnson

Owner & Founder

SOAR Digital

With the recent update to Shopify in June 2021 it is now possible to update your very own custom Shopify robots.txt file!

So, why is this important for your Shopify store...?

It's going to make it easier for Google to navigate through your site, prioritise important pages and stop wasting precious crawl budget on thin pages that are created across your site.

This has been a long awaited feature which has been requested time and time again within the SEO community. For many SEO-savvy store owners this may have even swayed them to choose another CMS platform over Shopify such as Magento or Big Commerce.

So trust me when I say it's a pretty big deal for Shopify's technical SEO setup that it's now possible to update and edit it yourself.

If you're really looking to take your technical SEO to the next level, then you're going to want to read this....

Don't be intimidated if this is your first time editing a robots.txt file. I'm going to walk you through step-by-step exactly what to do with lot's of images along the way to keep it nice and visual. It's fairly straightforward... I promise!

So... let's get stuck in!

Firstly... What is a Robots.txt file?

A robots.txt file is a way for a website owner to communicate with search engine crawlers about what pages they would like the crawler to access on their site and which pages are not allowed.

It's essentially a set of instructions that shows Google the most helpful information on your site and prevents the crawler from discovering pages with sensitive information such as checkouts and login dashboards.

Here's what a Shopify robots.txt file looks like:

How to find your Shopify Robots.txt File

All Shopify stores come with a default robots.txt file so all you need to do to find yours is:

Enter your store URL followed by:

/robots.txt

Like this:

www.examplestore.co.uk/robots.txt

Why is the Robots.txt file important for SEO?

A robots.txt file is important for SEO because Google has a set 'crawl budget' for each website on the internet which is essentially how often Google will visit your website to check for new content and page updates. If you are allowing Google to access all of the thin pages on your site then you're wasting your crawl budget on pages that shouldn't show in the search results.

We need to make it as easy as possible for Google to understand which pages on your site are the most important and therefore deserve to be ranked in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page). But more importantly, we need to make it very clear which pages we DON'T want to include in the search results.

With Shopify sites, there are often hundreds of 'thin' pages which are created as a results of filters and tags so it's our job as website owners to tell Google not to waste its time trawling through hundreds or thousands of these irrelevant, thin pages and instead divert the attention to our core collection pages, product pages and blog posts.

This is also achieved with a sitemap.xml feed which tells Google the important pages on your site that you DO want to rank, but Shopify does a pretty good job at generating this for you out of the box. Therefore, the focus in this article is to make proper use of the robots.txt file to tell Google which pages you DON'T want to be crawled, indexed and ranked.

Is Shopify's robots.txt Bad For SEO?

Out of the box Shopify does come with a default robots.txt file that covers most of the essentials. Although, it's not perfect.

With Shopify's default txt file, Google is still able to crawl:

Tagged collection pages
Tagged blog post categories
'Shop all' page
'Vendor' pages
'Product type' pages

This can lead to issues with crawl budget across your site.

Previously, we could use canonical code to help Google understand which of these pages is the proper URL that deserves to be ranked. Although, canonicals don't always work as it's up to Google's discretion whether they use them or not. Plus, Google actually has to crawl the page before it 'reads' the code that tells it to no longer index this page.

Whereas the robots.txt file is absolute so there's no chance of Google misinterpreting which pages need to be crawled and which pages should be excluded from the search results. You do have to tread carefully because one mistype in the txt file can lead to entire sections of your site disappearing from the search results. However, in this guide I'll walk you through the right way to set it up.

Issue 1: Tagged Collection Pages

One of the most common problems we see time and time again with Shopify stores is an improper use of 'tagged' collection pages. If your collection pages use 'tags' to filter the search results (such as size, colour, price etc) then your site will create hundreds of duplicate pages for each of these tags.

For example:

Main collection page:

examplesite.com/collections/ baking-equipment

'Tagged' versions:

examplesite.com/collections/ baking-equipment /bread

examplesite.com/collections/ baking-equipment /free-from

examplesite.com/collections/ baking-equipment /gifts

examplesite.com/collections/ baking-equipment /organic

examplesite.com/collections/ baking-equipment /sourdogh

With the default Robots.txt provided with Shopify, all of these pages are individual URLs that Google can discover, crawl and index.

So if you've got 10-50 collections, and each of those collections has 20-30 tags, and each of these tags can be combined in various combinations you can soon see how hundreds or thousands of URL's can be created as a result.

Issue 2: Tagged blog post categories

Ever tagged one of your blog posts before? This is great for user experience as visitors can find related topics but unfortunately this creates a blog category page for each new tag. These can all be crawled by Google and might be considered 'thin' or duplicate pages.

For example:

examplesite.com/blogs/news/tagged/funny

You can find your tagged blog posts by searching in Google:

site:yoursite.co.uk/blogs "tagged"

It should look something like this:

Issue 3: 'Shop all' collection page

This is often a useful page from a user experience standpoint, because your visitors can view your entire product catalogue in one seamless page. Although, it's often not properly optimised for any keyword since it's such a general range of products. You're much better off having specific collection pages targeting specific keywords and therefore you might choose to exclude this page from the search results.

Example shop all page:

examplesite.com/collections/all

Issue 4: 'Vendor' pages

Shopify auto-generates pages based on your 'Vendors' which you can't properly optimise. If you do want to create pages for your Vendors I would suggest creating a collection page manually instead and having the 'Vendor' pages excluded from the search results to keep things clean. This way you can properly optimise each page with relevant H1 headings, meta data & descriptive content.

Example vendor page:

examplesite.com/collections/vendors?q=Nike

Issue 5: 'Product type' pages

Shopify also auto-generates pages based on 'product types' that you assign to individual products. Again, it is preferable to create individual collection pages for each product type and use the robots.txt to stop Google from crawling these auto-generated URLs.

Example product type page:

examplesite.com/collections/types?q=Shoe

So without further ado... here's exactly how to add and update your very own custom robots.txt for Shopify that will prevent search engines from discovering these tagged collection and blog pages.

Steps To Update Your Custom Shopify Robots.txt File

Firstly, you'll need to navigate to your theme by clicking:

Online Store > Themes > Actions > Edit Code

Next, under templates select " Add new Template "

Select "Robots.txt" from the dropdown menu and create the template .

You will now have an editable Robots.txt that we can update an adjust to match your requirements:

Simply copy the code below and paste it in place of your current version :

# we use Shopify as our ecommerce platform

{%- comment -%}

# Caution! Please read https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/promoting-marketing/seo/editing-robots-txt before proceeding to make changes to this file.

{% endcomment %}

{% for group in robots.default_groups %}

{% for rule in group.rules %}

{% endfor %}

{%- if group.user_agent.value == '*' -%}

{%- endif -%}

{%- if group.sitemap != blank -%}

{%- endif -%}

{% endfor %}

This will exclude all of these 5 page types from being crawled and indexed by Google:

Tagged collection pages
Tagged blog post categories
'Shop all' page
'Vendor' pages
'Product type' pages

Once saved you can visit yoursite.com/robots.txt to check that the new lines have been added.

Final considerations

Once live you can test your robots.txt to see if it's working by visiting the free Google tool here:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/robots-testing-tool

Simply copy a URL into the field and it'll tell you whether or not Google has access to that URL.

Upon checking Google Search Console you might find some more URL's populating in the crawl stats that you don't want Google to crawl and index. If this is the case then you can simply find a common part of the URL to exclude in your robots.txt.

For example, a client of ours had numerous crawl requests for URL's with this structure:

/collections/all?page=2&_pjax=.product-listing-loadmore

So all we had to do was add a new line to the robots.txt which excluded any URL's with 'pjax'. This is how it looked:

You can also exclude specific pages too, such as:

Anyway, I hope this helps anyone looking to clean up on the technical SEO for Shopify store.

As a Shopify SEO Agency , we're here if you'd like us to take a look at your Shopify store to increase your organic traffic and sales.

For more information on Shopify why not check out our recent Shopify SEO case study or our last blog post on how to optimise your Shopify collection pages with SEO .

Stay tuned for more guides, tips & info coming soon!

Shopify Collection Page SEO: 6 Steps to Rank Category Pages in Google

james@forward-linking.com (James Johnson) — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 12:08:38 GMT

Step 1 : Consider Your "Main" Keyword by Collection Page

For each collection page on your site, you should have varying primary and secondary keywords. It's an important consideration to make and without proper planning, you might find yourself duplicating pages and targeting the same keyword multiple times across multiple pages.

This is one of the most common mistakes we see with Shopify stores, there's an assumption that if you sell a particular product with a particular keyword, then you should optimise all of your pages for this keyword. Whether it be a blog post, your homepage, a product page or a collection page and so on.

This, however, is particularly damaging to your site as it can dilute your main keyword across your site and put you in a position where your own pages are competing against one another for the same organic traffic. It can't be stressed enough that...

You should only have one page on your site for each keyword that you target.

The only exception to this is if you're targeting slightly different intent for a particular keyword. For example, you wouldn't want to optimise more than one page for " bamboo t-shirts " unless the intent behind each page is drastically different.

So, let's say your category page is the main page to attract people looking to " buy bamboo t-shirts ", but you could also write a blog post about the " benefits of bamboo in t-shirts ". They are both targeting " bamboo t-shirts " but the intent is different. One is informational, while the other is transactional.

The point here is that you shouldn't have more than one collection page targeting the same keyword, no matter how tempting it is. You'll see a much greater increase in traffic over time by having specific pages for specific searches. As opposed to multiple, moderately optimised pages that overlap in keyword targeting between one another.

That's not to say that you can't optimise each collection page for more than one keyword, in fact this should be encouraged. However, the primary and secondary keywords should be grouped by page with no overlap between separate collections. For example:

Collection = pendant-lights

Main keyword = pendant lights

Secondary Keywords = bar pendants, kitchen island lights, hanging lights

Collection = floor-lights

Main Keyword = floor lights

Secondary Keywords = freestanding lights, floor lamps, lamps with floor stand, standing lamps

This method of separating keywords out into grouping them by pages is called ' Keyword clustering ' and is one of the harder areas of SEO to master, so if you're doing this correctly then you'll be ahead of 90% of your competition!

Our tools of choice for keyword research are Ahrefs and Semrush , although these are paid tools so if you're looking for a free keyword tool you can use Ubersuggest .

Step 2: Consider "Long-tail" Keywords Over Generic, High-Volume Keywords

The more generic your primary keyword for each collection page, the more competition you'll be up against, and the harder it will be to rank and gain traction in the search results.

You're much better off with a long-tail keyword that has less competition, or a descriptive phrase that people using Google will use to search for your type of product. You'll be ahead of the curve and you won't be competing against as many other websites when it comes to ranking in the SERPs (Search engine results page).

This is particularly true for new websites, if you've got any hope at ranking for those high-volume, competitive keywords then you'll first need to gain some traction with longtail keywords.

Choosing a primary keyword with 3, 4, 5 or even 6 words in length is going to drastically decrease the potential search traffic to the page (i.e. less people are searching for this keyword as it is more specific). However, by choosing a more specific primary keyword for each collection page you'll have far less competition and it's much easier to rank.

Not to mention, the added specificity of long-tail keywords means that the traffic is much more likely to make a purchase. Someone searching for " sporty blue men's trainers with red laces " are much more likely to convert if they land on a specific collection page that sells these exact shoes vs. someone just searching for " men's shoes ".

It's clear which of these keywords will have the most searches and traffic, but if you're an independent seller going up against behemoth retailers with near-unlimited SEO budgets, it's an easy decision to niche-down. You can't beat them by being more a more authoritative and trustworthy website, so you'll instead have to beat them by being hyper relevant with your target keywords and associated collection pages.

Step 3. Edit & Optimise Your Meta Data

One of the first things that you should update is your meta title and meta description on the back end of Shopify. It's quick and easy to and these fields are responsible for the way in which your page is displayed in the search results, so it's pretty important that you get this step right.

Typically, the title should aim to be somewhere between 55-60 characters , and the meta description should be no more than 155 characters .

For the meta title, the aim here is to include your target keyword as close to the start of the title as possible, whilst also including any relevant secondary keywords that are associated with this page. A good starting point is to follow this structure:

Main keyword | Secondary Keyword - Brand Name

As for the meta description... This is the perfect place to entice your target audience to click through to your page. It's one thing to rank on the first page of Google but it's another to actually get that click. You've got to look at the search results as if you were a customer of yours... which result would you click on after searching for your main keyword? Why did you go for that option? Do they have intriguing copy that leaves you wanting to read more or do they establish trust?

It's an important field that will often include related keywords and phrases that become emboldened in the search, so it's very important that you replicate this throughout the description as well. Leaving out any important details or overpromising may leave the visitor feeling misled and confused about the content on your page. Once they arrive if the content doesn't match what you've described in your meta title and description then they will swiftly leave your site and move onto the next search result.

Generally speaking, it's not a great signal to Google if your visitors quickly "bounce" away from your site, so this is why it's essential to try and entice the user to click through without being misleading. If you've got a page answering a quick question then a short session time might be considered a good signal as you've quickly solved the user's query.

However, for most pages (collection pages included), the user shouldn't quickly bounce of the page so it's our job to bring them through from the SERP with a click and then satisfy the intent of their search with relevant content and products to keep them engaged on your site for longer.

Some great examples of a good call to action might be:

1. " Prices from just £9.99 "

2. " Free UK Shipping "

3. " Over 200 happy customers "

4. " You won't find this product cheaper elsewhere "

5. " Hundreds of designs to choose from "

Step 4: Increase On-Page Relevance for Target Keywords

You're best chance at ranking is to make it easy for Google to understand exactly what it is your page is about.

When a potential customer is searching for your products, it's Google's job to find the most relevant pages on the internet to satisfy the intent behind that search. We need to remember that whilst Google's algorithm is incredibly clever and complex, it can't always decipher what a page is about unless you give it exactly what it needs to understand its context.

One of the best ways to do this is by optimising your content to improve on-page relevance. We've already covered the meta title and meta description which you can edit to include your target keyword where appropriate, so the next step is to include relevant and descriptive content on the page itself. It's also good practice to make sure your collection URL includes your target keyword.

Within Shopify, you can edit each collection page and write content which will display itself above the products. Your aim here should be to include your primary keyword in the first sentence and include variations of this naturally throughout the duration of the copy.

Take inspiration from the top competitors in the search results; what sub-topics do they cover? What semantic (related) keywords do they mention? How many times are they mentioned? Does your copy not only satisfy the keywords that need to be mentioned, but does it also read well and help to build trust for your brand?

TOP TIP: Make sure that you're not purposefully including the keyword multiple times with slight variations, this is called keyword stuffing and can negatively affect your rankings. Instead, write for humans to create a naturally flowing description that tells your visitor why your products are great, what their benefits are, who would benefit from the product etc.

If you're doing it right, the main and secondary keywords should be evenly distributed through the copy without sounding unnatural or repetitive.

Breaking the fourth wall here, but if you take notice of this article that you're reading... How many times has "Shopify collection page SEO" been mentioned? My guess is, you've not noticed it throughout the article even though that would be the primary keyword for this blog post.

This is exactly what you should be aiming for....

Write for humans first, search engines second.

Step 5: Consider 'Splitting' Text for Improved User Experience

If you search your main keyword in Google and look through some of the competitors in the top positions you might find some of the category pages that rank have several hundred words of content which is either split above and below the products or there's a 'read more' functionality.

It's a great way to get the content on the page to increase the relevance for your primary and secondary keywords without hindering the user experience. Especially on mobile devices, as the copy will push the products further down the page so it's important to keep the user experience top of mind when adding descriptive copy.

Out of the box, Shopify doesn't have this functionality but it's not a particularly hard thing to implement if you're really looking to really level up your collection page SEO.

All you need to do to implement this is follow the steps below or watch the accompanying YouTube video:

1. Duplicate your theme as a backup by navigating to: Online Store > Themes > Actions > Duplicate Theme

2. Once duplicated, click " Edit code " for your Theme

3. Find the template responsible for the collection pages on your site (this will vary slightly by theme). You can usually find this by navigating to the collection.liquid template and reading which section is used in there.

4. Once you've found the section responsible for your collection page click into it and simply search the code with Ctrl + F to find:

"{{ collection.description }}"

5. Delete.

6. Replace with:

{% assign descriptions = collection.description | split: "" %}

{% assign first desc = descriptions[0] %}

{assign second desc = descriptions[1] %}

7. Paste the second description right before the final div tag of the product grid wrapper:

8. Ensure to 'wrap' the second description in the same div class as the first description by copying and pasting the div class from earlier and adding </div> underneath the second description.

9. Now all you need to do is navigate to a collection page where you would like to implement the split function.

10. Show the HTML for the text box.

11. Copy and paste:

...into the HTML text box where you would like the text to break.

12. That's it! Now you can save and preview your work. Any text after the split tag should show beneath the products.

Step 6: Create a Network of Internal Links Pointing to Collection Pages

Now that your collection page is properly optimised from an on-page perspective, the next thing to try and implement is to include links FROM relevant pages on your site TO your collection pages with relevant anchor text (the clickable blue text).

Not only do internal links help your visitors to better navigate your site but it also shows Google which pages on your site are more important to you and your visitors. It also allows authority to flow naturally throughout your site which can give these pages a boost in the rankings.

You can use your primary keyword and secondary keywords as the anchor text to further improve the relevance of your collection page for your target keywords.

For example:

A blog post titled " How to make bamboo clothes "

links to...

Bamboo t-shirts collection page

with the clickable text:

" Bamboo t-shirts "

Some of the best places to start with internal links are pages that are closely associated with the target page, so all you need to do is a site search in Google with your target keyword and your brand name like this:

"main keyword" + site:yoursite.com

This will show you all of the pages on your site that are relevant for this keyword, so they would make a great place to include a link to your collection page from within the content on these pages. You may find several blog posts that are related to this keyword which would make the perfect place to add a link to your collection page.

You can even link from product descriptions to relevant collection pages, or even from related collection pages to other collection pages. Your most important collection pages should always be included within your site's navigation (menu) and your homepage if possible.

Final Thoughts

So there you have it... 6 Steps to optimise your Shopify store's collection pages with SEO. These tips just scratch the surface for the amount of optimisations that can be made for Shopify stores. However, with these initial optimisations in place your collection pages should be well on their way to climbing the search results.

If you're looking for more advice with your store, we do offer Shopify SEO Services so we'd be more than happy to have a chat.

Or, if you're happy doing your SEO yourself, why not check out our Shopify SEO case study for more tips!

Hope you enjoyed this article - come back soon for more free SEO advice.

Shopify SEO Video Audit for Sewing Machine eCom Website 'SingerOutlet'

james@forward-linking.com (James Johnson) — Sun, 17 Jan 2021 11:39:15 GMT

Thanks Jason for submitting your Shopify site for a free SEO Audit to promote our Shopify SEO Services .

Hopefully, this will provide some great value for you to optimise your site and keep growing online ��

In this video, we look at Jason's site, SingerOutlet.co.uk, an ecommerce store hosted on Shopify selling sewing machines and sewing accessories.

Here's a breakdown of what I found! ��

Technical:

✔️ Consider optimising your site for speed, particularly your category pages which scored an F in the GTMetrix test .

✔️ Optimise for 'web vitals' metrics which are due to become Google ranking signals in May 2021

On page:

✔️ Include more content on collection pages by 'splitting' above and bellow products (see more Shopify Collection Page SEO Tips )

✔️ Include H2 tags on your collection pages (sub headings) with relevant content underneath each.

✔️ Write blog posts that appeal to your target audience in all parts of the buyer journey (Awareness, Consideration, Decision). Such as 'How to sew with a sewing machine' (110 searches/month) or 'How to sew a dress' (480 searches/month).

✔️ Internally link from your blog posts to relevant category and product pages to drive traffic and SEO power to your sales pages

Off page:

✔️ Build more high-quality, relevant backlinks to your important collection pages

✔️ Spy on competitors to find what their best backlinks are and replicate their successes

User Experience:

✔️ Shorten the megamenu to show it within the screen and not below it

I hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions!

Cheers Jason ��

Shopify SEO Audit for eCommerce Ethical Gift Website 'AmalaCurations'

james@forward-linking.com (James Johnson) — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 14:18:08 GMT

Thanks Medha for submitting your Shopify site for a free SEO Audit. This is the 5th of 10 completely free SEO audits that I'm filming for SOAR Digital to promote our eCommerce SEO Services , so if you'd like me to do the same for your site simply put your URL in the comments or PM me as there's only a few slots left.

Hopefully, this will provide value to anyone else looking for tips to optimise their own site, particularly if you have a Shopify site ��

In this video, we look at Medha's site, amalacurations, an ethical ecommerce gift store hosted on Shopify.

Here's a breakdown of what I found! ��

Technical:

✔️ Fix multiple duplicate collection and blog pages as a result of filters and tags

On page:

✔️ No h1 tags on home and collection pages

✔️ Optimise your 'Diwali' collection page for 'diwali gifts UK' as you're already on page 2

✔️ Add your Diwali page to your menu to pass authority through to this page

Off page:

✔️ Build more backlinks from relevant websites in your niche like you've done with 'thegreenparent' site

✔️ Spy on competitors to find what their best backlinks are and replicate their successes

I hope this helps, if anyone else has anything to add please comment below!⬇️

Or message me with your own site to be investigated��

Cheers Medha for submitting! ��

Shopify SEO Audit for eCommerce Lighting Website StudioArcForm

james@forward-linking.com (James Johnson) — Sun, 10 Jan 2021 18:30:50 GMT

Thanks Jen for submitting your Shopify site for a free SEO Audit. This is the fourth of 10 completely free SEO audits that I'm filming for SOAR Digital to promote our SEO Services , so if you'd like me to do the same for your site simply put your URL in the comments or PM me as there's only a few slots left.

Hopefully, this will provide value to anyone else looking for tips to optimise their own site, particularly if you have a Shopify site ��

In this video, we look at Jen's site, studioarcform.com, a lighting ecommerce store hosted on Shopify.

Here's a breakdown of what I found! ��

Technical:

✔️ Duplicate content across tagged pages

✔️ Add canonical code to prevent duplicate issues

✔️ Add /collections/ page to your menu for easier navigation

On page:

✔️ Create lots of category pages to target more specific keywords for lighting products (kitchen lights, black and gold wall lights, industrial lights etc)

✔️ Blog about industry-related questions and link to your category pages✍️

✔️ Identify the main keyword for your homepage and optimise for this

Off page:

✔️ Build more backlinks from relevant websites in your niche

User Experience:

✔️ Move the newsletter widget further down the homepage

I hope this helps, if anyone else has anything to add please comment below!⬇️

Or message me with your own site to be investigated��

Cheers Jen for submitting! ��

Live In Depth SEO Audit for 'My MX Data' Website

james@forward-linking.com (James Johnson) — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 13:28:59 GMT

This is the third of 10 completely free SEO audits that I'm filming for SOAR Digital to promote our SEO Services , so if you'd like me to do the same for you simply put your site in the comments or PM me as there's only a few slots left.

Hopefully, this will provide value to anyone else looking for tips to optimise their own site. ��

If you'd like me to do the same for your site simply put your URL in the comments or PM me as there's only a few slots left (I'm only doing 10).

In this video, we look at Michael's site, mymxdata.com

Here's a breakdown of what I found! ��

Technical:

✔️ 100% of pages missing H1 tags

✔️ 100% of pages missing meta description

On page:

✔️ Pick main keyword (such as 'secure data transfer' = 140 searches/ month in the UK) & optimise homepage for this + variations in H2 tags

✔️ Start a blog!✍️

✔️ Conduct market / keyword research to find out what questions your customers have and answer these in your blog posts + offer your product as a solution to these problems.

✔️ Use 'SEO Minion' chrome extension to find and extract 'people also ask' queries from the search results for blog content ideation.

Off page:

✔️ Site is gaining authority but domain authority score of just 8/100 is still quite low. (DR doesn't directly correlate to traffic & rankings but it's generally a good measure)

I hope this helps, if anyone else has anything to add please comment below!⬇️

Or message me with your own site to be investigated��

(Ignore my paused face after 7.30 mins, I don't think Zoom likes SEO!) ��

Cheers Michael!

Live In Depth SEO Audit for Enerjyhub

james@forward-linking.com (James Johnson) — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 13:10:18 GMT

This is the second of 10 completely free SEO audits that I'm filming for SOAR Digital to promote our SEO Services , so if you'd like me to do the same for you simply put your site in the comments or PM me as there's only a few slots left.

Hopefully, this will provide value to anyone else looking for tips to optimise their own site. ��

In this video, we look at Michael's site, enerjyhub.com.

Here's a breakdown of what I found! ��

Technical:

✔️ Homepage only optimised for brand name

✔️ Pick main keyword ("supplier management software" gets searched 90/month in UK!) & optimise homepage for this + variations in H2 tags

✔️ 59% of pages missing H1 tags

✔️ 54% of pages missing meta description

✔️ No custom 404 page

On page:

✔️ Write 'How to' style articles to target customers at all stages of the buyer journey and direct them to sales pages

✔️ Add unique content to main pages such as Aerospace, Construction & Automotive

Off page:

✔️ Site is really lacking authority & links with a domain authority of just 2.8/100

✔️ Build relevant directory and citation links for added trust

✔️ Create informational resources to earn relevant links from relevant sites

UX:

✔️ Create pages for all menu items and link to them in navigation instead of using #

I hope this helps, if anyone else has anything to add please comment below! ⬇️

Thanks Michael submitting! ��

Live SEO Audit for Celebrity News & Gossip Website

james@forward-linking.com (James Johnson) — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 16:19:28 GMT

This is the first of 10-15 completely free SEO audits that I'm filming for SOAR Digital to promote our SEO Services , so if you'd like me to do the same for you simply put your site in the comments or PM me as there's only a few slots left.

Hopefully, this will provide value to anyone else looking for tips to optimise their own site. ��

In this video, I was investigating Amir's Celebrity News & Gossip site, VeryCeleb.com. It's already nicely optimised but there were a few opportunities for growth...

Here's a breakdown of what I found! ��

Technical SEO Improvements:
✔️ Main KW not found on homepage in H1 / H2 / content
✔️ No meta description for homepage
✔️ Page size - decrease to <200KB

On page:
✔️ Internally link from within the content of each article to other related posts with similar target KW's and relevant anchor text
✔️ Use tools such as Surfer SEO to improve 'how to' articles to benchmark against articles on page 1 to earn links

Off page:
✔️ Build relevant directory and citation links for added trust
✔️ Earn links naturally from sites who have a close linking proximity to seed sites such as bbc.

UX:
✔️ Allow full dropdown on the menu for easy navigation
✔️ Pre-load images on homepage articles

I hope this helps, if anyone else has anything to add please comment below!

Thanks Amir for submitting! ��