How to Optimize Product Pages for Shopify SEO

If you’re selling online, you are competing against 7.1 billion others who are also trying to sell their products. Optimizing your product page for search can help increase your sales by getting the product higher up in the search results.

The Basics

Just like the rest of the website’s SEO strategy, you want to cover the basics like targeting the right keywords when putting together a product page. Broad-term keywords are the more general words and phrases that describe your product, like running shoes. Then there are branded keywords that attribute your brand or utilize words that are specific to your brand, like the difference between a running shoes and Nike Run Swift Running Shoes. Finally, you want to have long-tail keywords that address the attributes that are different about your product, such as Blue Men’s Running Shoes. Long-tailed keywords have a higher conversion value and can lead to more purchases of your product. These keywords should appear in your URL, product title, description, and image names.

Shopify Meta Tags and Descriptions

When it comes to the meta tag and description for your product pages, it is important that you create unique metas for each. These will help differentiate your product from other similar marketplaces and manufacturers. You do not want your product to be viewed as duplicate content to search engines, as this will hurt your page rank. Your product’s meta title and description are usually the first touch point in the customer experience, and leaving these blank means Google will create its own based on your page content. Your metas help increase clickthrough rates of your products, and 62.9% of users claim that they click through due to the meta description. With the addition of social share metas like Facebook Opengraph, you’ll see a similar increase in click-throughs from social shares. Getting your page to appear on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) is the first step, but it is not efficient if users do not click on it.

That being said, when writing copy for the product page, write for your audience, not for bots. It is important to use your keywords, but also use natural language. You want your language to be voice search-friendly, as voice-based shopping is expected to jump to $40 billion in 2022. The goal is to be able to fit the needs of the consumer. They are going to search for the simple item they want without going into too much detail, but the details needed in product descriptions to provide context and close the deal.

Shopify Page Speed

Page speed is another factor that impacts the page rankings. Users are not going to sit and wait for your product page to load past a few seconds. Pages with a longer load time have a higher bounce rate and lower conversion rate. You can check your page speed by using Google’s PageSpeed Insights. 64% of smartphone users expect a website to load in four seconds or less. Usability improves your SEO strategy by giving consumers a positive experience with no interruptions. Some factors that may cause your product page to slow down are large images and videos, excessive plugins, and messy templates and code.

Shopify Product Descriptions

Your product page needs to be detailed, but don’t forget to do the basics: product should have a title that focuses on the name of the product and include the manufacturer if applicable. Your product description should be your own. Do not use pre-written descriptions from manufacturers, as it creates an issue of duplicate content. The description should include the benefits of your product. Images or videos on your product page should be high quality and the file name should be named after your product, which aids in visual search. Images should show different angles of the product, give a sense of size, convey intangibles, and show texture so the consumer has a full understanding of what they are purchasing.

Customer Product Reviews

Once you have your product page up and running, it is important to generate real reviews of your product. There are many fake reviews out there, so it is important to get authentic reviews from customers who have already purchased your product. 91% of online shoppers between the ages of 18-34 claim to trust online reviews. Not only do reviews help your product or brand become more credible, but it also contributes to your search result. Some review management apps we recommend are Stamped and Yotpo, which provide features like social Q&A, photos, and check-out reviews.

When selling online, your product page SEO strategy is just as important as the strategy you take across the entire website and might need to be even more detailed. Sticking to the basics will help, but you need to dive deeper into product-specific keyword research and create original content to outrank your competitors.

Looking for additional help? Get a free consultation from our Shopify Experts today.