5 Shopify SEO Mistakes You Don’t Know You’re Making

So you’ve got an incredible Shopify store with fantastic products and a killer design. But no matter how amazing your shop is, people can’t find you online, and you’re missing out.

That’s where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes in. It attracts tons of organic traffic—those shoppers who find you on Google and other search engines. Let’s expose the top five Shopify SEO blunders, learn how to fix them, and help you climb those search rankings. With a bit of help from Bedrock SEO, you’ll be raking in new customers in no time!

5 SEO Mistakes Sabotaging Your Shopify Success

The Case of the Missing Keywords

Imagine trying to navigate without a compass; that’s what running your store without keyword research is like. Keywords are the magical phrases people type into search engines. Without them, your site’s a whisper in the digital wind! Optimized content with the proper keywords increases your chances of reaching those coveted top spots. By sprinkling the proper keywords throughout your Shopify store, you’re signaling to Google (and others), “Hey, this is what my store is all about!”

So, how does one find relevant keywords? Keyword research tools like Google’s Keyword Planner are great places to start. If you need more firepower, other tools, such as SEMRush, Ahrefs, and Moz, are more advanced, but they also offer competitor analysis and niche keyword ideas. When you deep-dive into keyword research using these tools, you understand what people are searching for when looking for products like yours.

It’s tempting to target the super-popular keywords with massive search volumes. But these are more competitive (harder to rank for). Start with a mix of broader keywords and more specific, niche ones with lower competition (since these often signal higher purchase intent anyway), and weave these juicy keywords naturally in your product descriptions, blog posts, meta descriptions, and even image names!

Skip The Rookie Mistake With Bedrock SEO: Bedrock’s team of highly-seasoned SEO veterans makes ranking higher in search engines easy and boosts your online visibility. We stay ahead of the curve by being in the loop with the most popular keywords that help rank your store year-round.

Copycat Content

Google wants to give you the best user experience. When your site sounds too much like everyone else’s, it can be confusing for potential customers and bad for your SEO.

Search engine bots have a limited kitty of a ‘crawl budget’—they spend only a certain amount of time and resources scanning your site. Duplicate content forces search engine crawlers to waste time on redundant information instead of discovering your unique pages. Moreover, when multiple pages on your site have the same content, they compete with each other for rankings. This splits your authority and makes it harder for any of those pages to rank highly. If you want to cross-check duplicate content, tools like Copyscape can help you monitor if your content is being stolen and allow you to take action.

What’s the best way to make your content shine, then? Write unique and original descriptions to start with. Focus on benefits, highlight your brand voice, and use those coveted keywords you’ve researched! Even if you sell similar items to your competitors, how you describe those items is where you differentiate yourself. You could also throw a few SEO-heavy blogs into the mix that answer your potential customer’s pain points and add value for shoppers.

Skip The Rookie Mistake With Bedrock SEO: Our team of SEO experts includes content writer veterans who write compelling, readable, and SEO-optimized content that flows throughout your e-commerce platform, including product descriptions, meta titles, and blogs that boost your online presence.

Lost in the Links

Internal links within your website connect one page to another. For instance, the internal linking structure from a blog post about summer dresses to your summer dress collection page on your e-commerce site. Internal links help visitors easily explore your shop, improving user experience, keeping them engaged, and making them spend more time on your site—something Google likes!

On the other hand, external links point from your Shopify store to websites on different domains. It shows Google you’re an authority, not just an island. For example, linking to an authoritative article related to your niche or a trusted supplier’s page shows that your content is relevant and useful. Linking to high-quality external sites also shows you’re providing valuable resources and strengthens the association of your store with your niche.

Skip The Rookie Mistake With Bedrock SEO: Our SEO team will produce a healthy mix of internal and external links that help your online store do better in search engine rankings and improve user experience. We know exactly how to have relevant links that don’t look spammy and establish trust and credibility with your site.

Title Tag Troubles

Your H1 tag is your page’s headline – it tells search engines (and readers!) about your page and what it’s all about. A clear, keyword-focused H1 helps search engines determine the relevance of your content. Think of it as the top of your content pyramid – it establishes the most important theme, followed by H2s and H3s that provide more detail and break up your content into sections. Following this structure makes it easier for search engines to understand the context and organization of your information.

By clearly telling search engines what your page is about, your content becomes more likely to appear in relevant search results. Think of it as matching your shop’s offerings to what customers are searching for. A well-written H1 tag not only helps search engines but also hooks human readers by giving them an immediate understanding of the content they’ll find on the page, improving scannability and overall user experience.

Skip The Rookie Mistake With Bedrock SEO: With our arsenal of H-tag tools, we create the perfect blend of tags that boost your search engine rankings, help you create a great user experience with prospective customers, and boost conversion rates.

The Invisible Images

Search engines like Google predominantly “read” through text. While they’re getting better at analyzing images, they still rely heavily on image file names and alt text to understand what’s visually depicted on your pages. Without alt text, your beautiful product photos are blank canvases for search engines because you’re missing a valuable opportunity to signal their relevance and get them indexed accordingly.

Well-optimized alt text helps your product images appear in these search results, increasing visibility. By smartly incorporating relevant keywords into your alt text signals what your page is about, boosting your overall SEO. Try focusing on creating informative captions that accurately describe the image with your target keyword included once or twice. Stuffing keywords into your image descriptions is a big no-no!

Skip The Rookie Mistake With Bedrock SEO: We smartly incorporate relevant keywords into alt texts without seeming too stuffy. Our SEO efforts are designed in a way that makes our content readable and has keywords naturally integrated into descriptions.

Work With The Pros

Don’t let potential customers pass you by! Simple SEO improvements can transform your shop from invisible to irresistible. Start fixing these common mistakes, and soon, those shoppers who COULDN’T find you before will be flocking to your online presence.

Tired of spinning your wheels with SEO? Let Bedrock SEO’s seasoned pros handle the heavy lifting. We’ve helped businesses of all sizes succeed and are hell-bent on delivering results for you. See the difference with a free SEO site analysis – no strings attached!