FAQ

First, if done right, on-page SEO helps you get more targeted high-quality traffic.

Second, on-page SEO improves your website’s usability - it helps you solve duplicate content issues, as well as thin content issues; it helps you create a more intuitive navigation structure, provide a better shopping experience, and more.

Third, on-page SEO plays an essential role in how search engines perceive and index your pages. In other words, on-page SEO has an impact on how your Shopify web pages (homepage, category pages, product pages, blog page, article pages, etc.) perform in search.

Title tags are HTML elements that specify the titles of web pages. Title tags tell humans and search engines what a particular page is about. As such, they are important for SEO, as well as usability. Here are a few guidelines that will help you write SEO-friendly (and engaging) title tags:

• Every page on your Shopify website should have a unique page title.
• The title of a page should describe what the page is about. The more specific the title is, the better. Here are a few ways to make your product page titles more descriptive: include serial numbers for electronics; include the material the item is made from (e.g., bamboo cup, porcelain cup, cotton shirt, cashmere sweater, leather jacket, etc.); specify what the item is used for (e.g., wine glass, coffee cup, etc.); include styles for art or home decor (e.g., Scandinavian design) and more.
• Write concise page titles. Shopify’s restriction is 70 characters. However, Google displays only the first 50-60 characters of the title tag (source: Moz). So, the best practice is to keep your title tags below 60 characters.
• Use your target keywords in your title tags. The best practice is to use keywords at the beginning of the title (source: Moz).
• Avoid keyword stuffing (including repeating the close variants of your keywords). Repetitive information provides no unique value and makes your titles look spammy.
  
• When appropriate, use symbols (like brackets and dashes) to highlight important points and make your page titles more engaging.

The meta description tag of a web page provides a short summary of the page. Google doesn’t use meta description tags as a direct ranking signal. But a well-written meta description can entice customers to click on your link, which will increase your CTR (which is a ranking factor). Therefore, writing SEO-friendly meta descriptions (that drive clicks and conversions) is an integral part of your on-page SEO strategy. Here are a few guidelines you can follow:

• The meta description tag should complement the title tag. Do not repeat or paraphrase the title. Instead, use the meta description to provide extra value. A good rule of thumb is to focus on your customers. In other words, put yourself in your customers’ shoes and try to answer the following question: “What would make me click on that link?” Then, ask yourself some follow-up questions. If you’re writing the meta description of your homepage, ask yourself what would potential buyers want to know about your business and brand. If you’re writing the meta description of one of your product pages, ask yourself what would make your customers buy this product, how would it make their lives easier or better, why should they buy it from you, etc. Use your meta descriptions to answer these questions.
  
• Write concise meta descriptions. You’ve probably heard that meta descriptions are like elevator pitches. This means that they should be persuasive, comprehensive, and short. In Shopify, the character limit for meta descriptions is 320 characters. However, according to Moz, Google only displays the first 155-160 characters of meta descriptions. So, the best practice is to keep your meta descriptions below 160 characters.
  
• Include your target keywords in your meta descriptions. It is also a good practice to include LSI keywords in your meta descriptions - this will help search engines understand the topic of your pages better.

Headings or header tags (H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6) define the hierarchy of the different elements on a page (homepage, category pages, product pages, blog page, article pages, and more).

Using headings to break up and categorize your content will increase the usability of your website (which will result in a better user experience). It will also help Google understand the structure of your web pages better, as well as define which are the most important sections of a web page.

SEO-friendly URLs are short, clean, comprehensive, and contain keywords.

Note that when Shopify generates URLs for pages, it adds prefixes that describe what the page is about, i.e., /pages/ before pages, /products/ before products, /blogs/ before blogs, /posts/ before posts, etc. From an SEO perspective, this is not so great. But, if you keep your URLs clean after the prefix, this will not affect your rankings in any way.

Also, note that when you create a page in Shopify, its title becomes its default URL. Stop words (or filler words) such as “a,” “of,” “for,” “and,” etc. are included. So, before you make the page public (i.e., before you mark the “Visible” checkbox), make sure you delete all these filler words.

One more thing you should know about URLs in the context of on-page SEO for Shopify (and e-commerce for that matter) is that canonical URLs are important.

Creating high-quality relevant content is essential to on-page SEO. There are several things you should focus on when it comes to writing such content for your Shopify website.

First and foremost, you should write detailed product descriptions that will be useful to your customers. Writing such descriptions will reduce the number of thin content pages on your website. It will also help you provide a more informed shopping and user experience. Here’s how to do this:

• Put yourself in your customers’ shoes and ask yourself what would you want to know about the product. What are its benefits? How can it be used?
• Talk about the product features and what makes it unique, i.e., highlight the product’s USPs.
• Give your customers a reason to buy this product from you and not from your competitors. In other words, explain why your product is better. For example, is it X times faster, or Y times more effective? Is it made of better materials (i.e., is its quality higher)? Is it eco friendly? Is it sustainable?
• Use social proof - add reviews and testimonials to your product pages and leverage the power of your most valuable asset: your loyal customers.
• Include helpful supplementary content such as a currency converter, for example (remember the takeaways from Brian Dean's list of Google ranking factors).