IS SHOPIFY GOOD FOR SEO?
Shopify is the most popular online ecommerce platform which helps online businesses manage their data and online store better. But still some business owners are apprehensive about whether Shopify would be completely reliable to boost up their businesses. So we bring to you the benefits of using Shopify to boost your business. We are also going to inform you about some of the issues you can face while using Shopify and also present you with some expert reviews so that you can make an informed decision if Shopify is indeed good for SEO.
BENEFITS OF USING SHOPIFY
Shopify provides its users with a variety of features and tools which help them boost their online ecommerce business and monitor significant growth over the time. In this section we will present to you the benefits of using Shopify and you can judge for yourself if it is indeed good for SEO.
- Clean and SEO friendly URLs: Shopify generates clean and SEO friendly URLs which are easy for search engines to read and understand. This means that by using Shopify your website has a higher chance of being discovered by Google and ranked among the top websites in web search results. This feature of Shopify helps indexing and ranking your website better in Google or other search engines.
- Mobile Responsive Design: Shopify’s themes are designed in such a way that they are mobile responsive. This means they have been designed to fit in all screen shapes and sizes. This helps a lot as the majority of the users may operate their stores from laptops, tablets and mobiles. It would be a real issue if Shopify had not been mobile responsive as Google ranks those stores and websites which can be operated from all devices. This feature is important for SEO as Google prioritizes mobile friendly websites in search results.
- Customizable Meta Titles and Descriptions: Shopify gives you the freedom to customize your meta titles and descriptions of your pages and products as you wish. Using Google Search Console you can view the keywords for which you are ranking or the keywords that are driving the maximum traffic to your website. Using this information you can customize your product page titles and descriptions using the keywords that you are ranking for. This feature helps you optimize your on-page SEO and increase the click through rate (CTR) from web search page results.
HOW TO SETUP GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE TO SHOPIFY STORE IN 5 EASY STEPS
- Structured Data Markup: Shopify generates structured data markups for your products to increase their visibility in web search page results. This feature helps in SEO optimization as it provides additional information about your website and products to search engines like prices, availability, ratings and reviews. This increases the chance of a user to click on your website more than other websites given the extra information available to them due to this feature.
- Site Speed Optimization: Shopify has in-built apps and codes which optimize the speed of your website and help it load better and faster. Now let us be honest. In this fast paced internet world no user likes to wait for more than 2 seconds for a website to load. If it takes any more time than that, the user automatically exits the website and clicks on another one which has a better downloading speed. So this feature helps your website load faster and better and hence rank among the top websites in the web search results because all search engines prioritize a fast loading website.
- SEO Apps and Plugins: Shopify has a wide range of SEO apps and plugins that help you optimize your website further. These apps perform the basic SEO optimization which helps your website rank better in search engines. These include keyword research, link building, image optimization and a lot more!
- Blogging Platform: Shopify has an in-built blogging platform which you can use to create SEO targeted content and drive traffic to your website and help it rank better in search engines. Blogging is an effective way to optimize your website as it helps you to target long tail keywords and attract backlinks to your website. This increases your visibility in search engines and helps rank your website better than your competitors.
- Security and Reliability: Another reason that Shopify is among the most trusted online platforms to expand your ecommerce store is the security and reliability it guarantees. It provides HTTPS encryption, daily backups and 24/7 customer support to its users. These features make it more popular among online ecommerce store owners and is considered the best for SEO in the current market.
ISSUES WHILE USING SHOPIFY
While we have listed the benefits of using Shopify for your online ecommerce store we will not hold back from you the possible issues and problems that you might face while using Shopify. It is your right as a consumer to be informed about the shortcoming of a platform you are using for your website so that you can make a more informed decision regarding your business. So here in this section we list you the possible issues you can face while using Shopify:
- Transaction Fees: The main issue that you face overtime with Shopify is the transactional fees it charges in some payment methods. These fees tend to add up over time and hamper your profit. One way these transactional fees can be avoided is by using Shopify Payments but that feature also has its own shortcoming. Shopify Payments is not available in many countries so a lot of users lose out on the opportunity to avoid the transactional fees.
- Limited Customization: While Shopify offers an array of customization options it might not be adequate like other platforms in the same business. Many users have complained that Shopify is not that flexible when it comes to customizing the design and functionality of the website which other platforms offer. This lack can be a huge disadvantage because businesses nowadays have a very specific need and nearly all of them want to create a unique user experience which becomes somewhat of a hindrance when it comes to customization on a simplified level with Shopify.
- Limited Blogging Features: We know we listed Shopify’s blogging platform under the benefit sections. But there is a limitation when it comes to advanced blogging features in Shopify. Users face issues as they cannot incorporate advanced features like scheduling, categorizing and tagging other blog posts. In a content driven SEO market, these issues will indefinitely put the website far behind in the race with its immediate competitors who might use a better blogging app to create their content.
- App Costs: Like we mentioned under our benefit section, Shopify has some in-built SEO apps and plugins which help optimize your data and help to rank your website better in search page results. Some of these apps are not free and charge a considerable amount for you to use it on a regular basis. It offers the users various plans to choose from and each of these plans are priced reasonably. Even though the majority of the apps are paid, almost every app offers various plans with advanced features which will help the user to optimize their website even better. These app costs constitute one of the problems of businesses that are short or tight on their budget or those who want to avoid paying for additional services.
- Limited International SEO Capabilities: Shopify has limited capabilities when it comes to catering to international search engines and audiences. It is limited due to the fact that it is mainly built for the English speaking market particularly, North America. Even though it offers support and market for other languages such as French and German, its SEO tools are mainly designed for the English language search engines like Google. Another factor which limits Shopify’s international SEO capabilities is the way it handles multilingual websites. It does not have an in-built solution which can create multilingual websites and thus hinders some international users from benefiting from it. The last reason regarding why it is insufficient in this field may be owing to the differences in search engine algorithms and search practices. For Shopify to go international, it must know the culture and search habits of every international market. Otherwise it is impossible to design a platform which caters to the needs of every international client on board.
- Slow Page Speed: Even though Shopify offers a wide variety of features to optimize your website many users have reported that their own page loads very slowly compared to other platforms.
EXPERT REVIEWS
There are many expert reviews available online both from individuals and organizations regarding whether Shopify is good for SEO. We would like to share some of them for your fair understanding of whether using Shopify will be beneficial for you. Let us list some organizations which reviewed Shopify and whether or not it is good for SEO:
- TechRadar: In their review of Shopify, TechRadar gave them 4 out of 5 stars. They particularly pointed out their ease of use and the wide range of features it has to offer its users. On the downside, they remarked how the users might find their pricing structure a bit complicated and confusing.
- PCMag: In their review of Shopify, they gave it an “excellent” rating of 4.5 stars out of 5. Shopify was mainly praised by PCMag for their ease of use, mobile responsiveness, wide variety of features and SEO capabilities.
- Capterra: It is a website which collects user reviews of business software. Based on over 12,000 reviews, Capterra gave Shopify 4.5 out of 5 stars. It was upheld by the website for its ease of use, variety of features and the 24/7 customer support.
- Website Builder Expert: The organization gave Shopify a whooping 4.6 stars out of 5. It upheld the legitimacy of Shopify based on its ease of use, SEO capabilities, wide variety of features and also remarked that it is the best platform which is suitable for business of every shape and model.
- Business News Daily: They gave Shopify 4.5 stars out of 5 and provided the users with a detailed report of its pros and cons. The highlights of the reports being that the users recommend and prefer Shopify more than other platforms due to its ease of use, SEO capabilities and wide array of features. Remarking on the cons, Business News Daily pointed out that Shopify can be pretty expensive for businesses which have large product catalogues.
Shopify is one of the solid choices for businesses looking to optimize their online ecommerce stores. It has some genuinely great features and tools acclaimed by expert individuals and organizations which help you boost your online business. We cannot obviously overlook the considerable drawbacks of Shopify like transactional costs and limited customization. It all comes down to the type of business you own and how you want to expand it. You need to weigh the pros and cons of Shopify as listed above to make an informed and data driven decision about the expansion of your business. Hope you are able to make the right decision!
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