The role of SEO in eCommerce: A Shopify Plus perspective

In this article, we'll dive into the powerful synergy between SEO and eCommerce, with a focus on Shopify Plus. We'll uncover actionable strategies, addressing Shopify-specific challenges and highlighting advanced techniques to boost your organic search rankings. With these insights, you’ll find the inspiration to maximise your Shopify Plus store’s SEO performance.

How SEO drives your Shopify Plus store forward

SEO is the secret sauce for getting noticed online. It’s all about using the right strategies to optimise your store, improve search rankings and bring in organic traffic that leads to more conversions and revenue. When it comes to content platforms, Shopify Plus is a game-changer for businesses that need powerful flexibility and scalability.

With advanced features like greater control over your store’s checkout template, powerful B2B selling tools and accelerated performance, Shopify Plus is designed to help your business adapt to the constantly evolving demands of eCommerce. Its enhanced capabilities ensure your store is prepared for evolving search engine algorithms, so your store stays optimised.

Pair Shopify Plus with a solid SEO strategy, and you’re setting your store up for success. From creating SEO-friendly product descriptions and speeding up load times to reaching new customers across the globe with multilingual and multi-currency options, Shopify Plus gives you the tools to drive more traffic and connect with your audience.

Essential SEO strategies for Shopify Plus stores 

A powerful eCommerce SEO strategy for Shopify Plus takes a thoughtful, multi-layered approach, starting with smart keyword research. Tools like Semrush or Ahrefs will help you uncover high-value keywords that align with the needs and behaviors of your audience, setting the foundation for impactful SEO. Optimising your product pages is a top priority too. By weaving these keywords naturally into titles, descriptions and image alt text, you’ll create content that connects with shoppers. 

Let's break this down into actionable bite-size tasks:

Use SEO tools like Semrush or Ahrefs to identify high-value keywords. Look for terms with high search volume, low to medium competition and strong alignment with buyer content, like "next-day delivery indoor heaters". Longtail keywords like these are easier to target than "indoor heaters". You wouldn't go into a shop and shout out "indoor heaters!". You'll describe what you're specifically looking for to the helpful staff so they can accurately recommend a product for your requirement.

Include primary keywords naturally in your product titles, eg. "Satin a-line wedding dress in ivory", making them descriptive yet concise. In your product description, highlight benefits, features, benefits, care instructions, and specs while integrating keywords organically. Break it up with bullet points to make it easy for users to quickly find what they need.

Ensure your images are not only optimised for fast performance (like saving them as .webp files), but also your image filenames are titled systematically with product keywords instead of IMG3342. Next, ensure you write descriptive, keyword-rich alt text when you upload your images, not only for search engines but also so they are accessible too.

Every eCommerce store needs a solid internal search to help customers find products fast. Use Shopify’s built-in features to add synonyms or suggested search terms, making it easier for shoppers to discover exactly what they’re looking for.

Leverage Shopify Plus’s powerful infrastructure by compressing images using tools like WEBP Converter, minimise javascript and CSS code, as well as reducing cumulative layout shift (elements on a webpage can move unexpectedly while it’s loading, causing content like images, buttons, or text to change position, which can confuse or frustrate users). Faster loading times improve user experience, reduces bounce rates and tells Google that people like your website.

Make sure to test your Shopify store on different mobile devices to ensure smooth navigation and fast performance. Keep an eye on how the site loads, how elements are displayed, and whether everything feels intuitive. Check that buttons, images, and menus are lined up right, and that text is easy to read. Fixing any issues you find can really improve the user experience.

Pairing these strategies with Shopify Plus’s powerful features helps you level up your store’s online presence, attract more visitors and boost SEO performance that will encourage users to visit your website over the next store.

Technical SEO considerations for Shopify Plus 

When it comes to Shopify Plus, understanding technical SEO is really important for flawless site performance. One important factor is handling duplicate content. This involves using canonical tags, crafting unique product descriptions, and setting up redirects where needed. These steps help protect your site from hurting your search engine rankings.

Making sure your javascript-rendered content is accessible and indexable is another factor to bear in mind. Tools like Google’s Fetch and Render are great for checking how search engines see and index your content, making sure everything’s ready to be found and shown to users. Hidden elements and content powered by javascript can't be discovered by Google, which can pose a problem if some of your keyword-rich content cannot be crawled by search engines.

Collection navigation (filters that narrow down products based on preferences, like colour, size, material and other attributes) can enhance the user experience but might cause SEO headaches. To avoid this, you can use noindex tags, manage URL parameters or tweak robots.txt to guide search engines effectively and keep things organised.

Finally, adding structured data to your Shopify Plus store is a total game changer. It helps search engines better understand your content, shows rich snippets, and boosts your visibility in search results. This makes your site look more credible and engaging, helping you stand out to potential customers.

Advanced SEO techniques for Shopify Plus 

On Shopify Plus, advanced SEO strategy goes beyond just optimising your product pages. It’s about building authority through high-quality backlinks too. This involves forming strong partnerships, creating share-worthy content and establishing yourself as a thought leader and inspiration to earn valuable backlinks that boost your site’s credibility.

Social media and influencer marketing also play a huge role in your website's SEO. By increasing brand visibility and driving traffic, they help amplify SEO through higher engagement and social signals, giving your site a stronger presence online.

User experience (UX) plays a big role too. Shopify Plus stores focus on smooth navigation, fast page loads, and mobile-friendly design, improving both SEO and user engagement. UI is about beautiful design, but good UX goes deeper and means higher engagement, better conversions and improved visibility for your targetted keywords for organic search.

By combining off-page strategies, social outreach and UX-focused design, Shopify Plus stores can take their SEO to a whole new level. Building strong backlinks, engaging with influencers, and creating shareable content help drive traffic and improve your site's authority. Delivering a smooth and enjoyable user experience keeps visitors happy and coming back for more.

These SEO strategies work together to not only boost your search engine rankings but also build a loyal customer base. As you drive more traffic, increase engagement and keep users satisfied, your store gains more visibility, credibility, and conversions. In the long run, this holistic approach sets you up for sustainable success, ensuring your brand thrives for years to come.

Measuring and sustaining SEO success 

Tracking and maintaining SEO success on Shopify Plus requires a sharp focus on the right tools and metrics. Google Analytics, Google Search Console and third-party tools such as Ahefs or Semrush are valuable for tracking important metrics like organic traffic, keyword rankings, conversion rates and user engagement. These insights can really help you understand how well your SEO efforts are working and where adjustments might be needed.

But keeping that SEO success going isn’t just about tracking metrics, it’s about adapting to change. SEO is constantly evolving, and staying on top of things like algorithm updates, shifts in user behavior and emerging trends is really important. This agility lets you learn new strategies and embrace new techniques before they become the norm.

SEO success isn’t a one-time thing. It’s about consistently refining your approach, adapting to changes and learning about new changes in algorithm updates to keep improving your Shopify Plus store’s performance over time.

Let’s recap

It’s not just about keeping up, it’s about staying ahead. Embracing these SEO strategies is really important for brands that want to not only stand out but shine in their market. With the right approach, you’ll build lasting success and keep your Shopify Plus store visible no matter what changes Google and other search engines throw your way.

Partner with a Shopify SEO agency

If you're looking for guidance and support to maximise your Shopify store's SEO performance, we'd love to guide you. Our team of SEO experts are specialists in Shopify, helping brands like yours get discovered by the right audience. We’ll work with you to create tailored SEO strategies that drive growth, increase organic traffic and boost your online visibility.

Schedule a call with Josh Grant today to discover how we can help your business grow.