Wondering how to do SEO on Shopify?

At our e-commerce brand, we’re discovering a lot about SEO optimization for Shopify. For us, it relies a lot on image search. As humans, we love visual help.

Google is adamant about being accessible to the differently-abled. This means it is easy to help accommodate the visually impaired with words.

When you’re writing alt tags, remember their first purpose! To help humans not seeing your visuals hear what the image is about.

Google’s quest to be the best information provider is strong. Google will read your image alt descriptions to get an idea of your site. Images help the most when matching your blog post or product page.

4 Ways to Do SEO on Shopify

• Upload Your Images Named for SEO
• Use Alt Image Tags to Improve SEO for your Shopify store
• Write good Meta Descriptions for your product pages
• Use a Keyword Tool to Research Product Names

Upload Your Images Already Named for SEO

You can’t change the names of image files in Shopify.

The name you upload the file to Shopify with will be the file image name for-ev-er (Goonies voice).

Jk, you can change it by uploading a new photo with a new name, even if it’s the same photo with a new name.

Best to name the file in Canva before downloading to your computer. Then you can change the image size if you need and upload it with a descriptive image name.

Or, you can download your graphics, change the name, then upload to Shopify.

It’s a process— so many people skip it, and this can help you out.

What if I Don’t Rename My Image Files on Shopify

Well, likely, you’ll be looking for clients via the affiliate method or buying ads on social.

If that’s your strategy, okay, but when you stop spending money, the ads stop delivering clients. That is not true of SEO. In theory, the work you do today for SEO still stands next week and next year.

Unnamed Canva Files Uploaded without changing the name for SEO on Shopify

In Canva, the name of the file will be different depending if you download one photo at a time or many. When you download many slides at once, the name in the top right corner next to SHARE will be the folder name. Inside the folder, each file inside will be the name of the individual slide. If you download one slide from Canva, the file’s name will be what you type in the top right corner.

If you’re not very diligent about naming every slide, you’ll end up with names like:

1.png

2.png

Which are not very useful for SEO on Shopify.

Working with dropshipping on Shopify? Your supplier system is going to import all images with a confusing alphanumeric code. Using these generic names is not how to do SEO on Shopify.

Unnamed Stock Images Uploaded on Shopify without Changing the Name for SEO

And if you download files from Pexels or another licensed stock image site, you will end up with a long image name. Each stock file touting the photographer and Pexels. Great. Put this info in the caption, and put your own keywords in the image file, which becomes the slug for the photo.

Unnamed Canva Images Uploaded on Shopify without Changing the Name for SEO

The best practice will be to name your files in Canva. (or whatever program you make your graphics in.) Either download one slide at a time and change the file’s name in the top right corner of Canva.

Or name each individual slide and download a pack.

When you download many slides from Canva, they will be put into a folder.

The name of the folder will be what you type in the top right corner of Canva. The files will be the individual slide names or 1., 2., 3., etc. See the photo above for reference.

I download my canvas slides one at a time for Shopify because I will upload them immediately into my product page with a drag and drop.

Write Image Alt Tags to Improve SEO on Shopify

Run a local service business?

Google image search is going to be a fine way to improve your SEO. Chances are there are lots of little subsections to your metro area. Using each neighborhood or town a few times with your phone number will improve your SEO on Shopify (or off the platform!).

You get two chances to hit SEO with a photo. Does your site have more images than blog posts? Then you have more inherent opportunities for SEO with images.

You can write an entire blog post with at least 1500 words or update a few image alt tags and file names. Both help your SEO.

What you name your image on Shopify matters. You want to corroborate evidence for people and Google. Naming your image the same as your product and including the name in the image alt text is corroborating the evidence that this page is indeed about [this keyword friendly thing].

When naming your image on Canva, you’ll need to include – dashes to separate the words. Otherwise you’ll end up with “supercoolpropagationjar” instead of super-cool-propagation-jar. Google knows that “super-cool-propagation-jar” is also a “propagation jar” but it does not know that supercoolpropagationjar is a “propagation jar.”

With image alt tags, you’re limited on your SEO keywords.

The SEO opportunities that describing the photo itself provides to your brand.

Your SEO opportunities with blogging lay within the greater landscape.

Whatever your ideal customer searches for on the internet that aligns.

Updating alt image tags can be update one at a time so it’s easy to improve in short bursts over time. Renaming product images in Canva is also easier to complete in short spans of time.

This blog might take a few hours to write. In a few hours, I could choose to update more than one product image.

Updating the first Image SEO

I read recently that if you mess with the first image of your product on SEo, the google doesn’t recognize it. I have recently messed with tons of my photos and I think I know what they’re talking about. When I do a search on google for my site: site:mysiteurl.com I only find 2 pages indexed. But that’s okay, I’ll learn how to fix that later. When I started, I had about 175 mistakes on my website and now Ubersuggest siteaudit says that I have 56 problems now. Pretty cool. I’ve fixed like 120? Eak! So cool!

But when I do the google search for site:mydomain.com I only see 2 pages, and when I go to the images search, I see 24 products. But I have 119 products according to the indexed products page.

So now I’ll go back to my products that aren’t pictured here, or maybe the ones that are pictured with the wrong name. I’m guessing it’s in the naming and alt text of the image in the first slot, or maybe in the first product visual slot.

Wondering how to choose where to spend your time doing SEO on Shopify?

You could decide based on how much brain power you have available.

You can improve your Shopify SEO in short bursts of time. While a blog post is going to take a long stretch of uninterrupted time to complete.

Meta Descriptions

You see meta descriptions under the blue link name when you search for things on the internet.

Also, when you share something on social.

Meta Descriptions are short text blurbs of what the reader can expect when they click the link.

There are more than a few ways that you can go about your meta-description philosophy. But 160 characters is the max. If you’re reading on the phone, it’s more like 150 characters.

Each page on your Shopify can have its own meta description. Meta description is written to get the click. It’s a little bit of copy that goes a long way. Click through rate goes up the better this Meta description is at enticing readers to see what’s next.

Each blog and each image and each product and each website page get their own meta description. This 150 – 160 character blurb is what gets shared when you send something on social.

Let’s just try batchworking our SEO duties. One day we will add branding elements, another we will interconnect our blog with links, promote products, or add sneaky key words.

Research SEO for Product Pages

When we first started our Shopify store, we wanted to pick really adorable names.

Now we spend slivers of our afternoons researching what name works best for SEO.

SEO takes 4-6 months to start taking hold. Would have been cool if I did this a year ago, but instead I started out writing bs like this:

But I still did it. I still HAVE a store. I wouldn’t ever even get to SEO if I didn’t first populate my store with products. Our Shopify store began as a physical brick & mortar location. We chose to move it all online within the first year.

Using SEO for product descriptions allows us to wonder what people are looking for before we come up with the name. The product’s name will be better off as descriptive of what people are looking for. SEO research will help us choose things like “floor meditation cushion” to go for as our h1 instead of “Yoga Meditation Cushion”.

At the beginning, I thought a name like “yoga meditation cushion” would be appealing to people that are into both … Yoga & meditation.

Turns out not a lot of people search for “yoga meditation cushion”, but a lot of people sell it, so it’s hard to rank for. Both paid and SEO and difficult.

Difficult is not a good fit for us.

How to Name Product Pages for SEO on Shopify

Repeat the keyword on the Page.

The name of your Product will be the H1 on Shopify.

Using the keyword or its synonyms in the body will help corroborate that information.

Each product page is a standalone page with its own SEO.

Your H1 will be much easier to come up with for a product page than for your homepage.

Product page names are easy to come up with when you use the power of a good keyword research tool.

Chances are, when you put in your cutesy product name, you’ll find out that noone’s searching for that. Unless you bring your own influencer audience to your shopify store, or feel the need to support Team Zuck, your next bestie will be SEO.

Your product page name in Shopify will be your title tag. According to Ubersuggest, you don’t want a <title> tag that is too long /or/ too short. It will be difficult for search engines to understand the content with a title tag that’s less than 30 characters. 65 characters are getting too long because the search engine might cut out part.

Your full URL needs to be 160 characters or less to rank for any broad terms on Google, according to Ubersuggest.

Using a Keyword Research Tool to do SEO on Shopify

When I plop the working name of this blog into my keyword research tool, I get a few options.

Mine was “SEO Optimization for Shopify,” and 20 people look for it every month. $24 per click! Yikes.

I’m not into buying ads until I know my little internet loop works, but that seems like bad investment.

As a newer, less established blog …

I know what I’m going for here.

Better chances, less people.

I’m shooting for the 70 people.

I’m not planning to spend the next 5 years talking about how to do SEO on Shopify. I’d like to expand into other marketing and entrepreneurship topics. And find a community of women working their asses off, too.

One thing nice about “doing SEO”.

You’re planting a tree instead

of just taking shot in the wind.

Building a niche shop for earthy home decor on Shopify has been an awesome hands-on learning experience. Obsessed with the plant aesthetics, so it’s very on-brand and fun to work with. I love how everything I learn with my e-commerce store is something that will work for me later.

And that’s so true of my nerdy little pal SEO.

Recap: Keyword Research for Product Title Name

Unless you have a huge following — It’s a best practice to do keyword research for your product title name. One way is to name your product something cute, another is to be descriptive. You could be complete, or funny. The best way to name your products for growth is to name them for SEO.

So research the best way to say your product according to SEO Keyword best practices.

Then change it in these places:

• Title
• H2
• H3
• Paragraph
• Paragraph
• Paragraph
• Meta Description
• Url Handle
• Alt Text of the First Image. It appears on Browseo, which shows you how Google reads your website.

You want your website to corroborate itself.

Repeat these steps for every product.

Voilà!

150 million steps later …

Need More SEO Inspiration for Shopify Shop Owners?

Check out my next blog: How to Improve your Shopify SEO on a Sunday