Magento, the popular eCommerce website builder is being used by every second online store. Although there are many easier options they don’t give what Magento can.
There are so many features that are exclusively available with Magento and can be implemented by professional developers. These days, it is not too hard to find a developer who can develop an eCommerce website using Magento.
In this article, we are not going to talk about what Magento is and how it can be used to improve the eCommerce business. This article will tell you how you can increase the reach of your eCommerce website that is developed with Magento.
SEO is what you need to learn about and Magento SEO is the way to go forward. Not just with Magento but with any website that is developed with any website builder.
There are some things that can be done for all types of websites but there are some technicalities that change with the way they are developed. Most importantly the technical SEO.
If you want to promote your Magento eCommerce website then you need to make sure that the SEO part is sorted. You don’t know how to do that? Don’t worry, this article will tell you everything that you need to know.
Do I need a Magento SEO extension or module to improve/manage the SEO of my Website?
When we start developing a website or performing a Magento SEO coalition, there are many things that can be done in the development process to make sure that the SEO is taken care of.
There are extensions or modules that can be added to the source code to give functionality. We can here take an example of WordPress. They have allowed the users to install plugins, there is nothing that is pre-built or integrated into the web builder already.
With better tools, you get the power to optimize the website and all the listings and content to stay fit according to the algorithm in terms of Magento SEO review.
This is the only way to let more people see your website. Submissions and other things are also valid but before that, you need to make sure that the technical and on-page SEO of your website is done properly.
Without these things, it might not be possible for the developers of website admin to rank it properly on the target keywords. The SEO expert that you hire will also need something to work on initially.
You can get a customized plugin by hiring a Magento 2 developer. These Magento 2 and SEO developers will ask you the requirements and give you a perfect extension accordingly.
The rules of SEO are changing and that is why using the same that was used 2 years ago by Magento SEO services might not be helpful. Also, there are many changes according to the type of blog that is written.
Now, for those who have used WordPress, these are nothing but plugins. It is exactly the same. You get to add it in the dashboard of your admin panel and then you get all the features of that extension.
Just like you can add the plugins to your website in WordPress, you can add the modules/extensions in Magento 2 and SEO of your website will then be sorted.
Let us tell you about some of the best SEO suites that you can use with Magento:
- Landing Pages by MageWorx
- Layered Navigation by Aheadworks
- SEO tool kit by Amasty and SEO Suite Ultimate by MageWorx
All the above-mentioned can fulfill the needs and do even more if done through a Magento SEO Specialist. If you want to know about each of them, you can find their review and demo videos on Youtube.
It is important to learn these tools before you start using them. Developers add something new to their tools and that is why just going like the last tool you used might not be the best decision.
This was about the extensions or modules that you can use with Magento. You need to make sure that you choose the extension according to your requirements.
These tools can help you well with your needs and improve the SEO score of your website.
Improving the website response time, and fixing the parts that don’t work or redirect anywhere, all this is important to keep the SEO score of the website high. This is not just for the search engine but also for the visitors.
When a visitor comes to your website, they don’t want to see your page loading for 10 seconds. That is why you need to fix that before anything else.
How friendly is Magento when it comes to SEO?
SEO is something that is used not to just let the search engines know that your website is worth the rank, but also to tell the visitors that you are legit. There are very rare chances that the search engines these days rank any website that is not legit in the top three search results.
The algorithm is changing faster than the trends on social media platforms. This is not done to make ranking harder for the businesses and websites, it is done for the users, the ones who actually use the search engines.
Yes, they are the ones who make search engines what it is, because otherwise, you would still have to resort to banner ads so that people see them and click to reach your website.
It is not easy to remember a new website, to be honest, it is impossible if you have no money and you still have created a website anyhow. This is not the case these days.
With Magneto you can easily make an eCommerce website and get it running in no time. But, developing the website, isn’t it? You need people who visit it and at least leave some feedback.
Making the leads into customers is something that depends on what you have on your website and the strategies but taking them to the website is the baseline.
If you don’t have people coming to your website regularly, you can take it as a red flag. SEO is not important, it is necessary for your eCommerce website that is developed with Magento, or even if it is developed with any other framework.
Read Also: The Ultimate Shopify SEO Guide to Optimizing Shopify
Tips To Rank Your Magento 2 Website On Google Or Other Search Engines
Let’s first make it clear that it is in no way easy to rank a general website or in no way tough to rank an eCommerce website that is developed with the help of Magento.
No Magento SEO Tutorial will make you a master. Making sure that your Magento 2 SEO is on point is important because taking any website out to its target users is important.
You need to make sure that all your activities are in sync with your goal that is to improve the SEO of your website.
When you get that in control, you can control exactly how you want to be seen over the search.
Now, know that consistency and effort in a Magento development company are two things that are necessary more than anything else.
If you don’t have these two, no matter what activities you are doing and what you are not, you will not get results.
Understand this fact and make sure that you never miss a day without doing something that will improve the SEO score. There are three parts of SEO:
How to do Magento On-page SEO?
This is everything related to the changes that are done on the web pages to improve their SEO score. It mostly revolves around placing images, putting keywords in the content, and more.
There are more elements on the website that impact the SEO score and all of them are known as the On-page SEO elements.
On-page SEO comes before all the submissions that can be done. This is what gives the organic reach. It also determines how impactful the submissions made in the Off-page activities will be.
This is the reason why companies hire people who can write content for their websites and find out relevant keywords for their content pieces. There are many people who think that keywords are only important for all content on the website.
eCommerce websites have product descriptions and more. These things need to have the keywords the people might be searching on the search engine.
Also Read: – eCommerce Testing: Test An eCommerce Website & Mobile App
Images and their alt-text also fall in this category of SEO. Now, there are people who might confuse this with image submission but that is a part of the Off-page SEO.
It is a separate part and it cannot be related to the submission of an image on the self-website. Images play an important role on websites.
How to do Magento Off-page SEO?
This is the thing that SEO experts and executives have to do constantly. This is mostly related to all the things that are to create more backlinks for the website.
Now, it is on the person who is handling the SEO campaign, they can choose whatever fits in the marketing strategy. They can decide on a strategy and start following it with dedication.
All the Off-page activities are done to let the search engine know that your website is trustworthy. It is really important that you understand Magento SEO activities and use them to your benefit.
With activities like directory submission, image submission, video submission, blog submission, social bookmarking, classified submission, and more you can create backlinks and increase trust on your website.
Backlinks are important and the only good way to get backlinks is to find quality websites where you submit your link. A backlink coming from a bad authority website will not make any changes but the same post on a well-reputed website will make a huge difference.
Another important thing to know when you are searching for how to do SEO on Magento is that you always have to post your link in the relevant category on a relevant website.
If you have an eCommerce website that deals with apparel you can’t go and submit it to a website that just deals with Automobiles. Even if you want to, make sure that they have a category called others or misc.
This will keep you from getting blacklisted by the crawlers. Also, know the golden rules:
- No plagiarism
- Use the Magento SEO plugin
- No fake news
- No manipulation of facts
- Don’t try to act like someone
- Don’t post something you don’t know about (Unless you have a publishing website)
- Your reviews need to be from genuine accounts and should be in detail
- Make sure you use original images along with your products portfolio (Images in reviews work fine)
You need to make sure that in a Magento SEO company, you follow all the rules that are mentioned above.
How to do Magento Technical SEO?
The most important and one of two parts that can be controlled by the extensions that will be installed in Magento. It deals with everything that goes on in the backend of the website.
It involves the optimization of various parts of the code in order to make the website run fast, make all the components work, and more.
For this, the website and Magento developers need to run an audit to know what things that are not working in accordance with the SEO rules.
There is a certain time in which the website should load, the images that are embedded in it should also load fast. All the apps on it should be working.
So, these were just the three parts of SEO that every digital marketer needs to know apart from the procedure to hire a Magento developer. It is always better that you take inspiration from competitor brands before you start your own SEO campaign.
This doesn’t mean that you copy everything they did. There has to be something that they did well and something that you think might work great. A balance between original and tested is what will give you what you desire.
Basic SEO Tips For Magento 2
Till now, we saw why we need SEO optimization on Magento eCommerce websites. We also understood what the different parts of SEO are and what are Magento SEO best practices.
After this, you will get to read some tips that will help you optimize your websites in a better way. When you know what are the things you have to do then you can very easily get to the goal.
This will also help you in creating a strategy for your campaign. SEO is way deeper than it looks. Most people just think that SEO is about keywords, and link building but if you have read this article carefully till now, you’d know what it actually is.
Magento SEO On-Page Optimization
When you are developing an eCommerce website with Magento you have to make sure that you have an On-page SEO optimization tool to help you.
All the things mentioned below have a huge impact on how the search engine sees your website. If your website fails any one of the tests or couldn’t fit any of the criteria, you will not see the results that you expect.
How to write Title tags and headings For Products in Magento 2
You need to pay attention to the title of the content that you put on the website and the headings in that piece. This is even available in the Magento SEO module.
It is important to understand that title is always in H1 and anything else on the page that is not in H1 cannot be referred to as title. Hence, if you are making something a title, just make sure that you put it in the H1 tag.
The title and heading both should have keywords in them. The title needs to have the main focus keyword and headings can have relevant extra keywords that revolve around the article.
Keep the words easy in both and make sure that they generate curiosity in people for the client as well as the Magento SEO company. The title is what the readers see first and if they think that the title has something good, then only they open it.
Everything matters about the relevance of the time. This is the reason why this task takes a lot of time. You have to incorporate the focus keyword in the title and make a catchy title out of it.
How to write a Magento Meta description
When you are a Magento SEO specialist, your responsibility is not only to get the title for your page or content piece but to find a meta description for the same.
You know that meta description is that short content that is displayed under your search result. This is often the deciding factor for people. They read this short content and decide if they really want to open your website or not.
This needs to tell the reader what is there on the page, why they need to open your website, and more. It should not be more than 150 characters. This is why you need to play with the words smartly.
Magento SEO-friendly URL Structure
There are two parts of the URL: one of the domains and the other one is decided by the page where you are which you will incur while doing SEO for Magento.
This is mostly divided by a “/” sign. Mostly if you just keep everything as it is, as in the default state there can be numbers and other things in the URL that is not SEO-friendly.
What search engines say is that the URL should allow people to understand exactly when they will see the page in the simplest manner.
There should be no numbers or special characters in between. It supports mostly general English words.
Content And Product Descriptions for Magento 2
All content on your website including the product descriptions has to be optimized in SEO Magento. There are certain rules that your writers have to follow.
Because everything you write on the website will be read by general people, it should be written in the easiest way. To optimize content according to SEO you need to be in the following manner:
- Sentences should be short
- Keywords should be used naturally
- Make sure to use the keywords in the first line and the last line of the content or description
- Don’t write paragraphs of more than 4 lines
- Keywords should not be too frequent
- Try to use only one keyword in one paragraph/section
- Use subheadings and bullet points
One more thing that you need to pay attention to is that you need to add content that can be turned into a featured snippet. These are mostly answers to questions or direct solutions to particular keywords.
To understand what has featured snippets, have a look at the image below:
Adding Featured Snippets or Rich Snippets in Magento 2
All of us have seen the featured snippets but only a few of us have actually paid attention to what it actually is.
Featured snippets are called the result 0 on the search results page, this is the one that gets the most attention because most of the time it answers the question that people ask.
There is no sure-shot way to get featured in this part but you still can follow some tips. Because here we are talking specifically about eCommerce websites you need to write the description in a crisp manner.
Use bullets to mention the features and specifications and more. These things help the search engine realize that you have legit information about something.
Featured snippets are mostly related to something specific. You can go to the people who also searched for a section and pick out the questions that haven’t been answered yet.
This will increase your chances of being featured in this snippet. Also, if you use tables and lists, the chances are better. Another thing is writing to the point in short paragraphs.
Long paragraphs are usually not considered in this part. The search engine wants a meta-description type of answer.
Set up HTTPS in Magento
You need an SSL certificate for your website to make it properly valid. This is something that you can do while you are purchasing your domain.
Without the SSL certificate being there the customers would not feel safe to give their sensitive information to your store. For purchasing something they would have to enter their bank details or their credit/debit card details.
SSL certificate gives you HTTPS and without it, a website can’t be trusted. If you have it, amazing. If you don’t, we think this is the time when you should finally consider it.
Go to your web developer and ask them to get it for you so that your business can finally come out as trustable to your customers. You can also search for the best SEO extension for Magento 2 for the best services and tips from various third-party applications
Magento SEO Off-Page Optimization
All the activities that are done to improve the reputation of the domain, increase the backlinks, and provide information about the keywords that are used on a particular website, fall in this category.
If you are not putting effort into creating more backlinks, you are giving away something that you could be getting for free. It is these off-page activities that actually give you the ranks that you want. Though it is not the only factor, it is a major one.
- Backlink Strategy:
The main activity that is to be done in Off-page optimization is creating backlinks and Magento SEO URL. Specifically, a lot of people need to understand that only quality backlinks matter.
Also, wrongly created backlinks can also push you down the search results. This is why you should not just rush when you are submitting your link to different websites. Find quality lists and then find the ones that are relevant to your category of websites and then start submitting your website link there.
- Guest Posting:
Guest posting is posting onto some other website and giving a link to your website in the profile or in the article. For this, A Magento SEO expert has to take permission from the website owner of the website admin.
This is one of the most effective ways of building a quality link. When you are a publisher on the website and you are authorized or maybe the website admin posts your article, the reputation of your link increases.
Also, you need to find some good websites where you are going to post. Sometimes for guest posting, you also need to give the website admin permission to post on your website. This is also a process that takes more effort than any other backlinking one.
- Submissions:
When we talk about submissions in Magento SEO marketing we are talking about the blanket that covers all types of submissions including the directory, social bookmarking, classified, questions and answers, reviews, images, videos, articles, etc.
All of them have their own value and that is why mostly all of them are included in the strategy. The basic idea is to get the link out on as many websites as possible and let people and especially the search engines know that we are out there.
Because the crawler of these search engines goes to every website that allows them to index and when they see your link on multiple websites it’ll think that you have a reputation and that is why your link exists on those websites.
Submissions have to be done constantly along with the Magento SEO sitemap, there can’t be days when you miss it because competition is really high. Even if you miss there will be people who will still be on it and that will put you below them if you get slow on your efforts.
- Reach Out To Bloggers:
You can reach out to bloggers for Magento SEO services. This might seem like guest posting to a lot of you but let us tell you why it is different. It is different because here you ask the bloggers to write something about you on their website with a link.
On the other hand, in guest posting, you have to write everything on your own. It is like a blog that you are writing on their website just in return for a backlink.
These backlinks are also very valuable as they come directly from the administrator of the website. With good research, you may find the best SEO plugin for Magento too. Here as well they might ask you for the same thing in return.
You need to find blogs that are similar and have good domain authority. It will benefit in not just increasing a backlink but their visitors will see the post made by the admin and if they like your website, they might actually become regular buyers.
- Create Content That Is Worth Sharing:
Other than submissions you need to focus on the quality and engagement quotient of the content on the website as well as Magento SEO tools. Try adding a blog to the eCommerce website where you share something about the industry or a top 10 article about the best products in each category.
Here, you get two advantages, one is that you get good content that people would like to enjoy and share, second is regular content on the website. Both of them will eventually bring more people to the website.
- Build Broken Links:
Broken backlinks are worse than no backlinks. They have a negative impact on the search result rank because they take your name but are not redirecting it to you. That tells the crawler that you might not be present on the web now. This is a negative sign and might result in poor ranks.
Find out all the broken links and try to get all of them fixed. There is a Magento SEO extension for the same. If you find no solution then it would be better that you remove them from the websites where they have been submitted.
- Get Brand Mentions:
Brand mentions are also a great way to increase the reputation and backlinks altogether. These are hard to get but if you get even a few of them you will see the benefits yourself. They have great value because they come from a website that is already trusted by search engines.
All these activities have a great impact on the SEO score of a website. After on-page activities for SEO in Magento, these are the activities that decide the rank of a website on a given keyword.
Not to forget, no fake content or copied content will rank on top. The crawlers are now smart and they know what is original and what is not.
Advanced Magento SEO Optimization
After you are done with the basic things, you should also pay attention to the below-mentioned advanced optimization tips. These are the things that will keep you ahead of your competitors in the long run.
Also, along with these, you will have to pay attention to the changes in the algorithm every few months now. Google is rolling out strict updates these days and if you miss out on the new rules, your website will suffer.
Read: – How would you hire a Magento Developer?
- Page Speed:
Your page speed depends on various factors that are mentioned below. These things need to be optimized in Magento 2 SEO so that the page loads fast. Slow-loading websites are not given preference by search engines.
- Image Optimization:
Your images need to be of small size so that they can load fast, especially for Magento eCommerce SEO. Also, you need to make sure that they have alt-text.
There are times when the internet connection can be very poor or the website servers don’t respond, that time people should at least know what was there when the image doesn’t load. Atl-texts are important.
Also, the images that are fixed like the banners and footer images, should not be of improper resolution.
- Use AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) in Magento:
You need to cater to a large number of mobile users. A Magento SEO tutorial can surely help with this. That is why you have to make sure that the page also loads fast over mobile phones. AMP helps in that and that is why every eCommerce website that is developed with the help of Magento needs to have it.
- Robot.txt
This file is really important because it gives instructions to search engine crawlers about how you want your website to be indexed. If you don’t include this file then you will not be able to tell the crawler how it should move on the website and what information it should crawl and what it should not. The crawler needs to know what it should not crawl because there are things that might reduce the impact.
- XML Sitemap:
XML sitemap contains all the pages and information on the website. This is like a map that helps the crawlers to navigate through the website. This is important like the Robot.txt file because without this it would be lost on the website. Magento 2 Template: Magento 2 SEO cannot work to its maximum capacity if the template is ignored during advanced SEO.
- HTML Sitemap:
It is very simple to get an HTML map as well that looks like the image below:
- Site Verification:
Your Magento website has to be verified by the search engine and below is a snapshot that will help you understand what you have to do to get it verified. In the below image, you have to enter specific codes for each console and tool.
Best Practices For SEO in Magento 2
Tips For:
- Make sure that all your H1 Keywords have the primary keywords
- Add a subheading under the title and add the keywords in the copy of the meta description as well
- All the relevant keywords should be there in the:
Magento Category Pages:
- For doing successful SEO in Magento, you must have a good knowledge of category pages.
- Keep unique copies of each page
- For products use long-tail keywords
- When writing for categories, write detailed descriptions so that people can understand everything that is important.
Magento Product Pages:
- Follow a proper hierarchy with proper headings and subheadings and maintain it throughout
- The product copy should be crisp, contain all the important information, and should be easy to read
- The value proposition should be highlighted so that visitors can know why they should buy the product
- Mention all the doubts that are possible (FAQs)
- Use bullets or numbers.
Magento Blog:
- Try and create blog posts that can add value to the lives of the readers. You can use website design services for the same.
- Find what your customers are searching for and write about it
- Target the informational keywords because that is what will generate the quality leads
- The content should not just be information but entertaining and engaging as well
- Make sure that grammar and facts should be correct.
Some Common Magento SEO issues
- Duplication Because Of Filers in Configurable Products:
A Magento SEO consultant works on more than one project. Due to this, this issue can arise/
- URLs With Numbers:
Magento SEO-friendly URLs hold extreme importance in the whole process. There should be no numbers that make it hard to read.
- Site Search Results Indexing:
There are some companies that demand Magento SEO migration services. In such a scenario, the site search results differ from the former ones. Indexing and crawling take place and it becomes difficult for the page to stay at the rank it was before.
Magento SEO Checklist
The SEO checklist lets you know about different things that have to be done in order to keep the SEO score of the page/article/website high. You can understand this with the image below
Different SEO Reports
- Demo SEO Report:
- Dashboard Report:
Magento SEO Conclusion
With all the processes mentioned above, one can integrate Magento and SEO to make their eCommerce website a hit. A good website development company always aims to provide the best solution to its clients. Clients must also provide clear requirements so that the final product delivered is flawless and requires negligible changes.