Why do you need a SEO App for Shopify?

Shopify is a great platform. No doubt about that. We actually think it may currently be one of the best webshop platforms on the market. But if it’s so good why on earth do you need an app to do SEO?

In this post we will take a closer look at why you may want to consider using one or more SEO Apps for you Shopify store.

Shopify is great – but not SEO-perfect

None of the many web-publishing platforms available are (SEO-) perfect out-of-the-box. That goes for Shopify as well.

So if you are trying to find a platform – a CMS og webshop system that delivers perfect SEO with a default installation forget about it. You won’t find it.

The question is: How easy can you do SEO on a platform – and are there SEO-factors you should optimize but don’t have access to.

All hosted platforms – such as Shopify, have limitations. You can’t change fundamental elements such as the hosting and there are limitations in what kind of server code you can execute.

But this is actually where Shopify – in our SEO-professional experience shine and stand out much better than most other hosted platforms.

First of all the Shopify hosting is super fast. And web site speed is very important. Not just for SEO but for usability, conversions and sales as well. Google as well as all users just love a fast website.

Off course, if you use a very bad theme, or add heavy elements you can easily degrade your Shopify shop speed and make it slower. But the starting point is great. Many other hosted platforms have slower hosting and as a merchant you can’t change that.

Also, there are indeed some limitations on what you can customize and code on Shopify but what we have found is that you can actually do most of what we recommend for SEO. Some of it directly in the code- and design-customizers and some of it through apps.

And that brings us to the main question in this article: Why do you need a SEO app at all …

Why do you need a SEO App for your Shopify shop?

There are many things you can and should do to optimize your site to become more visible in Google. Theoretically you can do most of that manually. But not all.

And the question is do you really want to perform all of the many – often tedious tasks manually? If you ask us, everything that can be automated should be automated. And any help you can geet to speed up tasks you should consider.

But lets take a quick look at the main SEO-factors that determine your visibility in search engines such as Google.

• Technical SEO
  As already mentioned, speed is a major technical SEO-isse. The Shopify servers are lightning fast but unless you also optimize all the elements you add to your site it will be slowed down. Also, there are many optional technical elements that can help you improve your visibility in Google, such as Schema-data, AMP-format, FAQPage elements and Breadcrumb navigation. Some SEO Apps can help you with all that.
• Content optimization
  Great content is super important for SEO but you may argue that content is not a system or platform issue. Content is something you have to write yourself – not something Shopify gives you. That is correct. But a good SEO App can give you access to content elements, such as SEO-optimized FAQ-sections, integrated FAQ-elements, dictionary sections and automation of related content. And the App can help you stay focused and test for you that you remember to optimize all content elements good enough.
• Links and linkbuilding
  OK, links just can’t be something you can expect a platform to help you with, right? Well, actually yes – to some degree. Both internal and external links are important. Internal links can be optimized and automated with a great SEO app. External links is a little more tricky. But by having access to content formats that have proven to draw more attention and natural links you can actually – all in all, get a more and better links with a good SEO app.
• User engagement
  The search engines do not only judge your website on technical factors, content and authority (links) – they also look at how well you manage to engage users. Websites with a high user engagement are more likely to rank well in Google. A great SEO App will give you access to elements – such as the ones mentioned above, that will help increase user engagement.

In conclusion: Even if you wanted to you can’t do all the best SEO manually. Some of it require features that is only available through an App.

Also, a good SEO App can help you manage your SEO. We use lots of external tools to do this on the consulting clients we work on. But these tools are expensive – they cost hundred of dollars each month in subscriptions. And they are advanced to use.

A good SEO App will include the tools and reporting you need, nothing more, and make it user-friendly for people like you that are not full blown SEO-experts.

No SEO App can automate all SEO for you!

No matter how perfect your SEO App is there will always be things left that just can’t be fully automated – even though some SEO-apps claim this.

On a Shopify shop there are details in the structure of pages, pagination and navigation that you have to adjust manually. But how do you do that?

As part of a great SEO App you should expect to get help with that. You may have to do some copy/paste of code and adjustment in the Shopify customizer but the SEO App you subscribe to should know this, what is important for SEO and help you with code snippets and guides. We do.