6 Steps to Get AI to Recommend Your Brand

Imagine transforming your Shopify store into a magnet for eager buyers. That’s what effective search engine optimization (SEO) can do for you.

By researching target keywords, optimizing content, using a logical site structure, and following more Shopify SEO best practices, your site can rank highly on the search engine results page (SERP).

This is particularly powerful for transactional keywords. They attract visitors ready to make a purchase—swiftly turning clicks into sales.

Take Rothy’s, for instance. This shoe retailer drew an impressive 312.3K unique visitors in May 2024. This was, in large part, to the SEO strategies we’ll explore in this post.

Type “womens loafers” into Google, and its Women’s Loafers collection page will appear at the top.

In this guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know about Shopify eCommerce SEO. So you can start driving more business to your store.

Why SEO Matters for Your Store

If you want to generate traffic and bring more customers to your store, SEO must be a priority. Here are [some stats](/content/seo-stats "69 Important SEO Statistics"/index.html) to prove it:

Google Organic Search Drives 57.8% of the World’s Traffic

Research shows Google Search is still the most effective channel. An impressive 57.8% of the world’s traffic originates there.

And there’s more: The #1 result on Google’s SERP gets approximately 27.6% of all clicks.

SEO Is the Best Value for Your Money

Paid advertising on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok can generate sales, but these channels are more expensive to scale due to the increases in Cost Per Click (CPC) and Cost Per Lead (CPL) in nearly all industries.

SEO, on the other hand, is likely to generate organic traffic when you invest time and effort. You don’t necessarily need to invest money. That makes outcompeting other sites with a stronger SEO strategy much cheaper than outcompeting them with a larger advertising budget.

SEO Provides up to 300% More Traffic Than Social Media

Even if you grow organically on social media (without spending money on any advertising), SEO drives many more visitors to content than social media can—300% more, in fact.

How to Prepare Your Store for SEO

Before applying any Shopify SEO tactics to your online store, you need to check that it’s ready for traffic.

Set Up Your Shopify Store

To make sure your store is ready to follow Shopify SEO best practices, do this:

• Change the random domain that Shopify first assigns you. Go to the Shopify dashboard and switch to a free domain that’s related to your brand (example.myshopify.com). Or buy a new one directly on Shopify.
• Choose a Shopify plan that allows for SEO optimizations. You can follow the steps in this guide with any Shopify plan, but the 14-day free trial won’t give you enough time to see results in search rankings.
• Use a mobile-friendly Shopify theme. Check that your theme is responsive using Google’s mobile-friendly test tool, Lighthouse.

Enable Google Search Console and Google Analytics

You’ll need these two tools to track users and fix technical issues on your site.

To install Google Analytics 4 (GA4), create an account, and follow the steps in our GA4 Setup Guide.

Add a Project in Semrush

Don’t worry; you won’t need to switch between GSC and GA4 every time you want to monitor your website. If you set up a Semrush project, you’ll have a dashboard with all your domain-related data in one place.

5 Ways to Optimize Your Shopify Store

Now that your store is ready to be optimized, let’s start applying Shopify SEO tactics. Here are five best practices to start:

1. Use a Logical Site Structure

When you optimize your site structure with a logical hierarchy, both visitors and search engines find content more easily.

Your homepage should link to categories, categories should link to subcategories, and subcategories should link to product pages.

2. Perform Keyword Research

Keywords are the terms that people use with search engines. To attract visitors who search with keywords relevant to your business, you need to incorporate those same keywords within your content on Shopify.

3. Start on Content Marketing

Once you have a list of clusters with primary and secondary keywords, it’s time to create content around them.

Include Your Target Keyword in the Title

Using your keyword in [a page’s H1](/content/h1-tag "What is an H1 Tag? Best Practices & Examples for SEO"/index.html) can be a boost to your SEO.

Use High-Quality Images for Your Content

Include high-quality images in your content with descriptive alt texts and file names.

4. Assess Your Technical SEO

After optimizing on-page SEO, the next step is solving any technical SEO issues.

Check the Canonical Domain for Your Shopify Store

Using a custom domain helps you build a brand. But there’s a technical SEO aspect that matters too.

5. Build Quality Links

Backlinks are links on other sites that point back to your site. Search engines see this as a signal that your site is trustworthy and has a good reputation.

Here, let’s look at just a few tactics that are an especially great fit for Shopify:

Find Backlink Prospects with Semrush

An easy way to start building backlinks is to ask other sites to link to your store.