To make your page appear higher in the SERP, you should optimize its content for keywords. Keywords are words or phrases in search queries that people enter into the search box. If your page contains those keywords at an appropriate density, the Google bot can acknowledge that your page’s content is relevant to the user’s search term and show it in the search results.
Adding keywords to the website is one of the most influential Shopify SEO tips to apply. In this article, we will walk you through detailed guidelines to add keywords to your store.
Table of Contents
How to add keywords to Shopify website?
Title and Meta description
Title and meta description are two of the most important SEO elements that Google records in the first place. If they well-match the search queries, your page’s rank can go up significantly, especially with less competitive keywords.
Also, the title and meta description are shown in the search results and make up the users’ first impression of your page. Searchers tend to click on the most attractive result that they think can answer their question, or give them lots of interesting information.
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How to add keywords to title and meta description?
The title length can be up to 70 characters. If possible, try to include your main keywords at the beginning of the title and use a long-tail version of that keyword. Make it more appealing with words like “best”, “top” or other industry-related adjectives like “sustainable”, “organic”.
Meta descriptions can contain up to 320 characters. You don’t need to show the exact match of your main keywords. Instead, try using some kinds of relevant or similar keywords. The best practice is to display your benefits with active voice and actionable phrases.
- Homepage
To add keywords to the homepage title and meta description, go to Shopify Admin -> Online Store -> Preferences. You will see the needed sections right here.
Write your own version based on your main keywords. For example, your store sells high-end leather bags for Australians like Kinnon. Your keywords should contain leather bags, Australia, luxury, etc. Hence, your title and meta description can be as below.
- Other pages
To add title and meta description to collection pages, product pages, blog posts, or any other page, go to Shopify admin and open the page.
| Product pages | Products -> All products |
| Collection pages | Products -> Collections |
| Blog posts | Online store -> Blog posts |
| Other pages (About, Contact, etc.) | Online store -> Pages |
In the Search engine listing preview section, click Edit website SEO. Then you enter your title and meta description based on your target keywords.
For example, if you are selling clothes organizers for travelling like Lapoche. Your target keyword is “outfit organiser”. Then your title, meta description, and URL can be as below.
Headings
Search engines use headings to determine what the page content is about and whether it matches the title or not. Optimized headings can also help win featured snippets in some cases and make your page rank for multiple related search terms. For example, we have an article targeting the keyword “Shopify footer”, but it also ranks for “Shopify footer example”, “Footer menu”, and “How to edit Shopify footer” as they are included in the headings.
How to add keywords to headings?
Before adding keywords to headings, you have to make sure that headings are distributed appropriately on your Shopify website. Heading 1 is the main sentence at the top of a page and is usually set the same as the page title. Headings 2 and 3 depend on correspondent pages. For example, on the homepage, they are usually equal to the section name and the collection/product title.
To check your headings, right-click anywhere on the page and select “view page source.” Then look for </h1> </h2> </h3> tags to find out what they are. You can also use the Site Checker Chrome extension to check.
For example, on Lapoche homepage, heading 1 is the logo instead of the top sentence “Elevate Your Packing Game with Lapoche”, which is not well-optimized.
If the headings are not distributed as you wanted them to be, you will need to work with codes in the theme.liquid file, which is quite complicated. In this case, we are offering a free minimum SEO package that covers heading optimization to help you with this issue.
- Homepage
To add keywords to headings on the homepage, go to Online store -> Themes -> Customize. Choose Home page and edit the correspondent section.
- Other pages
Open your collections, products, blog posts, etc. in Shopify Admin. Add keywords to heading 1 by editing the title section. Note that this title is shown on your page and is different from the title shown in the search results.
Image alt text
Descriptive alternative text (alt) helps search engines understand your image. It helps your page rank in image search and is also an important accessibility feature for people who encounter visual impairments. In some cases, you can win a featured snippet with an image beside your page result.
How to add keywords to image alt text?
Your image alt text should be 255 characters at maximum and as descriptive as possible. Incorporate main or related keywords into the text as much as possible.
From your Shopify Admin, go to Products -> All products (or Collections, Blogposts) and open the page that contains the image you want to edit.
Click the image, then click Edit image (or Edit Alt text) and enter your text for the image.
However, if you want to bulk edit all images with keywords on your website, then a Shopify app comes into play. We recommend you use this Bulk Image Edit app. It is easy to use and supports a free plan for a maximum of 50 image edits per month.
Body text
As you might not know, search engines compare a page’s content with its headings and title to make sure that the page is about what it claims to be about.
How to add keywords to body text?
Use readable, creative phrases that include some of your keywords in your blog post. Don’t copy text from a manufacturer’s description because it may have previously been used on other websites. Make sure each page has a minimum of 250 words of descriptive content. Informational pages or blog posts should not contain fewer than 500 words. You also need to take care of the keyword density across the whole page.
- Homepage
From Shopify Admin, go to Online store -> Themes -> Customize, you can add many block sections with text to make the homepage enriched with qualified content, e.g. image with text, testimonials, custom content.
While writing the content, remember to add some relevant keywords. For instance, if your main keyword is leather bags, your content text can contain leather, bags, briefcase, handbag, clutch, totes, purses, backpacks, etc.
- Collection page
The default setting of the collection page only allows you to add description text below the main heading 1. That is fairly enough because your collection page has already involved lots of keywords that lie in the product name.
However, if you want to add more content like the below website, use the Optizen app. The principle is that the more useful content you provide to users, the higher search engines evaluate your page.
- Other pages
The principle is that the more useful content you provide to users, the higher search engines evaluate your page.
However, the fact that there is too much text on the product pages can unintentionally affect the users’ readability and experience. Therefore, you should divide the text into different tabs with different description points.
Which are the best keywords tools for your Shopify website?
Now you know the principle and method for adding Shopify keywords but in a manual way. Keeping an eye on all your pages and detecting the unoptimized ones is time-consuming. SEO apps might not be a must-have, but they are great assistants that all SEO experts rely on.
The following are the most prevalent apps with high ratings and reviews from all app users. They support you in optimizing your images, image alt text, and meta tags with keywords.
SEO manager
The Shopify SEO Manager app is a fantastic Shopify tool for improving your website ranking, and it’s perhaps the best SEO tool thanks to its extensive list of unique features, including keywords optimization. It will provide you with pertinent information about how those categories are functioning on a global scale.
Smart SEO & Image Optimizer
The Smart SEO app ensures your meta tags and alt tags are all in good shape. It has various templates for you to choose from and apply to increase your traffic. Afterwards, the app will handle the optimization for you, ensuring that your store ranks higher in search engine results.
Plug-in SEO
The Plug-In SEO Shopify app has two pricing plans. The free one is suitable for Shopify beginners who are just launching their store and need basic SEO optimization. With the inbuilt smart analyzer, users are free to check an unlimited number of pages for SEO issues.
Final words on Shopify keywords
Now, we hope that you understand and execute adding keywords yourself for the best results. Remember that title, meta description, headings, image alt text, and body text are the five essential parts that require optimisation for keywords.
To implement a full ultimate SEO solutions guide, take a look at our free Shopify SEO checklist. Don’t hesitate to send us a quick message if you still have any questions. Good luck with your SEO work!
