Shopify themes come with several features with various functions, some of which users never get to explore. One of such features is Shopify product tags.
While a product tag might not be crucial to starting an online store, it is vital to improving the overall customer experience. And as such, it can help drive up sales. So how does a product tag affect your Shopify store? We’ll discuss this in detail in today’s article.
Table of Contents
What is a Shopify product tag?
A product tag is one of the many tag features that Shopify has. These tags are used to label various items and functions in the grouping, filtering, searching, and making bulk changes.
Besides products, you can also apply tags to orders, draft orders, transfers, blog posts, and even customers based on specific behaviors.
Shopify product tags are tags applied to products. They are primarily used for organizing products based on specific similarities. However, you can also use them for all of the functions earlier mentioned, most on the admin end and some on the user end.
Product tags are also used in creating automatic collections. For example, if you have a group of products that you want to be listed on a specific collection for customers to explore, you can use product tags to do that.
Most Shopify themes don’t display these product tags on the product pages. However, some themes do so. If your theme displays the tags, you can use this to your store’s advantage – we’ll discuss how in the next section.
Also worthy of note is the number of tags that Shopify allows on each product. Shopify allows up to 250 tags on each product. And each tag can’t be longer than 255 characters. You probably can’t reach any of the limits, but it’s good that we spell them out like this.
How do Shopify product tags boost SEO?
Many Shopify users wonder what impact product tags have on their overall SEO. The fact is, ordinarily, they have little effect. However, this doesn’t mean they can’t serve as an additional boost to your page SEO.
Like every other factor contributing to the SEO of a web page, product tags also need to be keyword-rich. As they usually are in single words, you can put each product tag as a relevant keyword.
Using a Shopify theme that displays product tags gives an edge
The determinant factor that informs the SEO impact of product tags on your online Shopify business is your Shopify theme. Only themes supporting the display of the product tags as part of the page content truly impact the website ranking.
When the product tags are hidden or featured in meta tags, they are usually ignored by search engine crawlers. But when they appear as on-page content, they are read alongside other page content.
Ensure detailed product page descriptions
To get the desired result of a better product page ranking, you have to provide other relevant content alongside the product tags. Again, this goes to stress the importance of product page content like product descriptions.
In cases where the product tags displayed on each product are more than 20, you have to be extra sure that the page content is well detailed. Otherwise, Google might penalize your site for keyword stuffing.
Product tags form URL for product collections.
Another fundamental way that Shopify product tags impact SEO is when they are used in product collections. Each collection calls for additional pages. This means more content for crawlers to use in ranking.
It comes in a format like https://sample.com/collections/[collection]/[product-tag]
Each collection comes with a unique URL which factors in the product tag used in creating it. And remember that the tag is a keyword in itself. That is good for SEO as search engines value URL keywords.
However, you have to be more intentional when using this function. That’s because what serves as an advantage can quickly become a disadvantage if proper care isn’t taken.
Differentiate duplicate content using rel=”canonical”
You need to ensure that the product pages have unique and quality content to differentiate them. When pages have very similar content, Google will tag the other pages as duplicates, and therefore only one of the pages would be indexed.
Maybe you don’t have that much content to distinguish the product pages from one another, and there is a way to prevent them from being indexed as duplicate pages. You would have to input rel=”canonical” into the backend code of the main page. This way, the crawlers know to pick up only one of the pages. And users can easily find any of the other products on the collection page.
How to create a Shopify product tag
Creating a product tag on Shopify is as easy as it comes. There are two ways to add tags to a product.
1. On specific products
You can add tags to individual products on Shopify. The steps are as follows:
Step 1: Open the product details page
Navigate to the products page on the Shopify admin dashboard. There you can select the specific products you want to which you want to add tags.
Step 2: Fill the tag field
Under each product page, you will find the tags field. You can add tags by typing the tag name separated by a comma. You also can select tags from the list of tags. If you type any new label, the tag would be automatically created when you’re done.
Step 3: Save
Once you’re done with adding tags, you click on save, and your product can now respond to the added tags.
2. Through the full list
An alternative way to add tags to a product is through the complete tag list instead of type tag names. Although, with this process, you can’t add new tags directly. The approach here is pretty intuitive.
Step 1:
Select “View all tags”
Step 2:
Choose from the tag list.
Step 3:
Select “Apply changes”
Removing the product tags is also through the same process as adding them. However, you only need to remove or delete by clicking on the “X” icon next to the selected tags instead of adding them.
When you need to take a bulk action on the products under a tag, you can use the “Select a filter” function. This would bring up only the products that carry the tag, and you can carry out a bulk action like an archive or delete.
You can create an automatic product collection by choosing to add by product tag under the “Collections” page for collections.
Using product tags to gain more sales on Shopify
From all we’ve discussed on Shopify product tags, you should know how they can help drive sales through improved SEO or product collections.
Here’s a complete list of the ways to use Shopify product tags:
Product search
Customers can easily navigate products when there is a functional search feature on a Shopify store. And just as people rarely search for specific product names on search engines, they would do the same on your store website. Therefore, you need to sort the products based on common keywords that apply to each product.
Product tags help ensure that all products related to a keyword are displayed when a search query is sent as long as the products carry the product tag applicable. This gives customers enough options to explore your store and a higher chance of a conversion.
Collections
Product collections are often more appealing than single products because they offer more variety to customers’ products. Also, collections sometimes come with special offers like discounts or special edition products. Hence they are choices for boosting sales.
To create a product collection, you would need a product tag that binds all the products. So, in essence, using product tags in collections is another lucrative way to make more gain from your Shopify store.
Better page ranking
The SEO impact of product tags on a Shopify store, even though comparatively small, can be the telling difference for your page ranking on search engines. Better ranking can equally mean more sales. By implementing all the tips we’ve highlighted in this article, you have a higher chance of placing your products on the radar to get new leads and more conversions.
Upselling and cross-selling
Upselling and cross-selling are effective strategies to boost sales. However, they are best done when the products being linked have a common ground. For products under the same Shopify product tag, it means they have one or more similarities to be grouped.
You can improve the conversion rate on your Shopify product pages by displaying related products by using a product tag. That way, customers interested in a particular product see other offers they might also be interested in. The more visible your product offers, the higher the chances of successful sales.
Conclusion
Today’s discussion has seen us explore all you need to know about Shopify product tags, what they are, how they benefit your store’s SEO, and how they can generate more sales for your business. Do you have any other concerns as to how product tags affect your Shopify store? Or are you having difficulty setting up any feature on your Shopify website? Explore our website now to find a fitting solution.
