EPISODE 4: SHOPIFY SEO STRATEGY TO ACTION SERIES

[00:00:00] Crystal Waddell: Templates are like the blueprint of your homepage, your product pages, and your collection pages. so today I'm giving you a clear breakdown of how to make small, smart changes to your templates. To help your SEO work harder for you.

Welcome to the Simple and Smart SEO show podcast, where we talk all things brand building SEO.

Helping you connect with your audience, elevate your visibility and grow your business. 

I'm your host, Crystal Waddell, here to bridge the gap between SEO strategy and real world business success.

Whether you're an entrepreneur, marketer, or SEO enthusiast, this is your place to learn, share, and build a brand that stands out. 

So grab a coffee or your favorite tea. And let's dive into Smarter SEO for your business.

welcome back to the Shopify SEO from Strategy to Action series.

We've talked about mindset, tech stack, and image, SEO so far. And today we're digging into your Shopify page templates. It's one of my favorite things to talk about.

Now I know what you might be thinking? Do I really need to touch my templates? Short answer, yes, [00:01:00] but it's simpler than you think.

Templates are like the blueprint of your homepage, your product pages, and your collection pages. If Google can't understand what your site's about from the structure, it doesn't matter how great your products are, they won't rank. so today I'm giving you a clear breakdown of how to make small, smart changes to your templates. To help your SEO work harder for you.

So let's talk about why templates matter for SEO.

 Shopify uses your same layout across your collection and product pages unless you make changes to them.

Search engines can scan your template structure to understand your brand.

A few quick tru, a few quick tweaks, a few quick tweaks can signal clarity, professionalism, and keyword relevance. So let's start with your homepage. Let's just ask yourself.

Does my homepage have a clear H one heading that states what my store offers? Are you using at least one to two sentences of text to describe your brand?

Do you have internal links to featured collections or best [00:02:00] sellers? And here's a pro tip, instead of just calling it collection, name the collection, use keywords wherever possible. So here's some simple actions that you can take. Change your H one tag to include your primary keyword or product category.

Add a short keyword, rich brand intro paragraph

and link to your top selling or seasonal collections on your homepage. As an example, for my brand Collage and Wood, I sell sports related products. Therefore, my products change based on the sports season. Right now we're in the fall sports season, so that means football, soccer, cross country, volleyball.

When it's winter or spring, I'll feature different collections because it's a different season.

Okay. Let's talk about collection page optimization.

These pages often get neglected, but they are gold for SEO.

But to start. Again, add a one to two sentence keyword rich description that tells what that collection is about. You can do that at the top or the bottom of the collection [00:03:00] page. Make sure that the title tag is customized, not just "collection dash Shopify."

I treat the H one and the title tag the same, so I teach concise, but descriptive in 50 to 55 characters.

Tell your site visitors what the page is about and why they will love it.

And then of course, use alt text for your collection image. And here's an SEO golden rule that I follow that will help you well into the future. No matter what type of search is created. Whenever you can add context, add context.

And help those who can't view your page, understand what's there.

let's talk about some product page best practices. Follow the same tips that I gave for optimizing your collection pages,

but in the titles include what the Item is and Social Proof about why your client will love it. This is an amazing tip that I received via Page Fly a couple years ago.

And implement the Jobs to be Done framework, A-K-A-J-T-B-D framework, also known [00:04:00] as jobs theory. Your customer has a job, which is. What SEOs call search intent. Make sure each page fulfills its duty to help the customer complete their intended goal with as little friction as possible. Write unique product descriptions with unique keyword use. This is an excellent chat, GPT use case, and then include product specific alt text on your images where you can also use keyword variations of your main keyword.

Use clear H two headings for features or FAQs. This is another great place for search intent focused keywords. And then enable reviews if you haven't already. They add fresh content and social proof, and if you missed it, see episode three for my recommendations.

If you're ready to update your pages, but you need a little bit of help about what to say and how to make your pages more SEO friendly and visually appealing. I created the Shopify SEO templates toolkit just for you.

Just like my other toolkits from previous episodes. It's only $7. It [00:05:00] includes fill in the blank, headline and intro formulas, title tag and meta description examples.

Homepage, product and collection, SEO checklist, and a few bonus H one and H two. Swipe files to speed things up. As well as step-by-step instructions for editing Shopify templates using your theme settings. So you can update text blocks, add headers, and rearrange content for better flow and clarity. See the link in the show notes for more information.

Oh! And then I have a short video where you can actually see me doing this in action.

 This toolkit's gonna help you structure your store for both search engines and people, real people who want a clean, easy to navigate experience. You can grab it at simple and smart seo.com/templates

and start improving your SEO and site structure in less than an hour.

 today we talked about how to. One, add keyword rich headers and content to your homepage. Number two, how how to boost your collection pages with just a few lines of text.

Number three, how to make your product pages [00:06:00] easier to rank and more buyer friendly. So coming up next in episode five, we are diving into actually how to use surfer SEO with Shopify.

That way, you can create content that's optimized before you hit publish.

Until then, update one thing on your homepage and tag me so I can cheer you on. You've got this. See you next time. 

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