About 5 million people in Singapore regularly use the Internet every day, according to a 2019 report from GlobalWebIndex. These active Internet users between the ages of 16 to 64 go online for a variety of reasons. But the most prevalent purpose why 85% of the Singaporean population uses the Google search engine is to search for a product or service.
The research discovered that 90% of the country’s Internet users looked for an item or service to purchase online, while 89% visited an online retail store. Because of this, over 11,000 Shopify stores have been set up all over Singapore.
Shopify SEO services offer search engine optimization improvements specifically formulated for online shops using the Shopify platform. While Shopify has built-in SEO features, SEO agencies can incorporate strategies to help the business reach the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Why Is SEO Important for Shopify Stores?
In most cases, small business owners in Singapore opted to set up a Shopify store to align with their customers’ new norm of purchasing behavior, as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.
To help Shopify stores reach their goals, they have to engage SEO agencies to optimize their online business. It will allow more people to discover the site in popular search engines like Google.
There are several reasons why SEO is essential for Shopify stores. Well-optimized Shopify sites usually land well on the first page ranks of Google SERPs. It would allow the brand to boost its credibility and turn it into an industry leader.
This advantage will encourage more people to trust the store and encourage them to make their first purchase. Also, SEO helps boost sales and customer reviews, which would also boost the store’s revenues.
How To Make SEO Work For Shopify Websites
Like any regular website, proper SEO strategies can help a Shopify store enhance its online reputation and convert leads into customers. The SEO experts can implement several approaches to help improve the SEO of a Shopify store. It includes:
- Removing Duplicate Content from The Shopify Store
Duplicate content refers to the document that matches the copy posted on another web page completely. The page could be part of the company’s Shopify store or from someone else’s website.
If the Shopify page has duplicate content, it could end up being a major problem once Google bots detects it. Once the search engine bots noticed the duplicate content, it would harm the rankings. It could even cause the site to get penalized by the search engines. So before posting any content, it is recommended to use plagiarism checker tools to detect external content quickly.
- Optimize Store Images
Google and other popular search engines worldwide use alt tags to understand the meaning of the images posted on the website. Because of this, the SEO strategist must incorporate appropriate alt tags using relevant keywords in all the site’s images.
Optimized images also help boost user experience for vision trouble people who use a screen reader for site navigation. The alt tags can describe what the image is all about verbally. Aside from using appropriate keywords, Shopify owners must also use unique and simple alt-tags to optimize the store’s images.
- Link Product Page from The Home Page
The home page works as the main access point for the Shopify store. It is also the most essential and powerful page on the site. If the web developer created navigation links on the homepage, they would provide a more efficient way for the site visitors to scan the site’s content.
If the web developer failed to link the Shopify store’s collection/category pages from the home page, it might keep some of the important pages hidden in the online shop’s obscure parts. As a result, the visitors will not be able to find the items posted on the pages easily.
- Take Advantage of Technical SEO For Shopify
Like any other regular websites, technical SEO is very crucial for Shopify stores. Business owners must instruct the person responsible for their SEO tasks to ensure that the essential search engine guidelines are met properly.
Some of the most usual elements that web developers need to address in technical SEO include checking the site’s robots.txt file to help the bots crawl faster. They must also ensure that the website has a complete sitemap.xml file and add it to the Google Search Console. They must also build a verified Google Search Console account and install Google Analytics. Also, validating the site’s HTML and CSS is also necessary to boost the site’s SEO.
- Set Up Domain Canonicalization and Canonical Tag
When talking about canonicalization, it means that a domain or page has been declared as the main version of the pages that contain the same items. For example, when the website offers a hand purse with several colour variations, they can dedicate one page for each colour. But they can designate one primary version of the product by adding a canonical tag. It will inform the search engine bots that even if the pages have identical content, they can ignore some of the pages except for the URL with the canonical tag.
Conclusion
Improving the Shopify store’s SEO techniques is crucial for the success of the business. With the help of website optimization, the company will stand a good chance to reach a wide range of customers with limited costs. It will also enable more customers to find the shop faster on Google SERP. If done properly, it will help improve the company’s sales and revenues in the long run.
