How to Optimize Your SEO When Migrating Your Shopify Site
That's it, you've had your e-commerce store running for some time now, your first sales have allowed you to build up a certain budget, and you're now thinking about changing platforms to better develop and scale your online store by performing a Shopify migration.
Shopify is the solution if you sell online. The platform provides you with its tools to better manage your online store. Shopify is also extremely flexible in terms of customization. Indeed, there's no need for long hours of development to create a sales page and/or a product page. A simple template is enough, which greatly simplifies your store's development costs.
However, migrating your store to Shopify is not simple, and you will often need to call on a Shopify Agency to help you with your task.
Migrating SEO from PrestaShop, WordPress, or Magento, for example, requires technical knowledge. Because if you switch from WordPress to Shopify, the site's language is not the same and some data will have to be added manually.
In this article, we will see how to migrate your SEO data from an old WordPress store to a new Shopify store in 3 detailed points below.
Summary
Perform 301 redirects (Permanent Redirects)
Whether for a redesign or the creation of a website, 301 redirection is an essential step that cannot be omitted. It simply consists of permanently replacing the old address of a site with the new address. Also called permanent redirection, it allows the user to access the same content that was available on the old website, but under a different URL.
This redirection is different from a canonical redirect, as it necessarily implies that the content has been deleted and moved elsewhere. This is very useful, especially for Shopify product pages that will not have the same URL as your old product pages.
That being said, when migrating your website to Shopify, you must make 301 redirects for all URLs from your old site to the new site. The benefit of permanent redirection during your site migration lies in the fact that it helps prevent duplicate content.
Indeed, if you only transfer your content without redirecting your URLs, you will have two versions of the same site. This is very negatively viewed by Google, which will penalize your site in search results.
Remember that a Google penalty can either make you disappear completely from the search engine's eyes, and/or impact your site's ranking on Google.
To make 301 redirects, you just need to implement this tag Redirect Permanent /www.examplesite.com / in your FTP server's .htaccess file.
To access it, you can use your host directly in a browser, if your solution allows it (this will depend on your host; Hostinger offers it but not OVH) or use FileZilla if you are on Windows or CyberDuck if you are on macOS.
To connect to your FTP, you must retrieve and/or create your FTP access in your hosting Back Office. Refer to this guide for more information on FTP access.
For assistance, you can call upon a Shopify Agency that will guide you from A to Z in your Shopify store redesign project.
Maintain keyword positioning with a Shopify site migration
During your Shopify site migration, your SEO will be subjected to several pressures that can impact your position in the SERP. This is why it is important not to rush the configuration of your Shopify store when you migrate your site.
You can use Shopify apps that will help you better understand your SEO and thus make the migration process smoother. But generally, we advise you to manually perform checks and data implementation whenever possible.
First, make sure to migrate your domain name from its root. Indeed, do not use subdomains, and prefer a short, clean address: www.tamaragency.com.
How to properly implement SEO tags on your Shopify store?
Next, carefully check your <Title> tags, as these tags are the cornerstone that maintains your SEO. So, make sure to follow these few rules for successful SEO: only 1 H1 tag per page (with the main keyword included in it), a minimum of 3 H2 tags (with keywords related to the page's topic), H3s to organize your information. Never put an H1 tag on an image, as Google does not read images, and finally avoid skipping heading levels, for example, going from an H1 to an H5.
Next, make sure to position your main keyword well within your content. To do this, place it in at least the H1, an H2, and repeat it throughout your content. Be careful, the keyword density should not exceed 3 to 5% of your content. Keyword density is a percentage representing the repetition rate of your keyword in a text.
For example, if I write a 1000-word text, and my word appears 30 times, then I have a keyword density equal to 3%.
Finally, also check the implementation of your semantic cocoon. Check your links, if they work, if they redirect to the correct page, etc. You can use SEO tools like SEMRUSH and/or Screaming Frog to help you find small migration errors.
To better visualize your semantic cocoon, you can use Screaming Frog's graphs, which will give you a lot of information, and also Xmind, which will help you get a clearer picture of your SEO strategy and also plan your future developments.
How to create a sitemap for your Shopify store?
Finally, you need to create a sitemap.xml for your Shopify store.
Your sitemap must be listed in the footer of your homepage to help the Google bot (the Crawler or Spider) index your site. You can create a sitemap for your Shopify store by following this Shopify guide. Normally, your sitemap is generated automatically, but it can happen on rare occasions that the sitemap is not generated. To check if your site has a sitemap, you can access it via this URL extension: /sitemap.xml/. For example, you can access Tamara Agency's sitemap via this link: www.tamaragency.com/sitemap.xml/.
Once your sitemap has been created, you must now submit it to the Google Search Console. To do this, go to your Search Console account — if you don't have a Search Console account yet, create one and verify it via your host — and then navigate to the Index section and click on the Sitemap tab. Then, submit your sitemap URL to Google. Google will then crawl this sitemap and index the pages of your site that had not yet been detected by the search engine.
How to create a site map for your Shopify store?
Finally, you can then create a site map, which consists of a page sending links to the most important pages of your website. You must put it in the footer on all your pages. This site map is useful for bots who use it to navigate more easily between pages, and also to show Google that your site is updated regularly — A site map is dynamic, when you create a blog post, for example, make sure to insert it into the site map. Your site map can also allow your visitors to more easily find a section.
To create your site map, you must first classify your pages by themes and/or categories, this will then allow Google and your visitors to better navigate your tree structure. For example, your blog posts go into the Blog category, and your products go into the Products category. Once this categorization is done, you will need to go to the code editor of your Shopify store, and create a new template that you can title "SiteMap". Once this template is created, you will only have to use it on a new page, and insert the links you need on your site map.
How do I submit my site to Google?
Indexing your Shopify store is an important step, because if your site is not indexed by Google, it means no organic traffic, and therefore, much fewer sales, and almost no long-term sustainability. To check if your site is indexed, you have several solutions available to you.
How to check your site's indexing on Google?
The "site:" command is an excellent way to check if your site's pages are indexing. When you type this command into Google, you will be able to see which pages of your website can appear in Google's search results.
Of course, you will have to note these URLs manually, which is why this solution is only suitable for small shops with less than 30 pages, as it is not scalable on a large scale.
How to check your site's indexing with Screaming Frog?
Screaming Frog is an excellent tool for managing your site's SEO in general. To check your site's indexing, Screaming Frog recently offered a Search Console integration that allows you to check whether each URL on the site is indexed or not.
This will also give you other information, such as whether a page is no-indexed or not.
To use Screaming Frog, go to the Screaming Frog website, download the software, install it, launch it, then, in the API section, connect the Google account to which your website's Search Console is linked, and then accept the parameters. Next, crawl your site by entering your domain URL (www.tamaragency.com) and wait for the results. In the Indexability section, you will be able to see if your pages are indexed or not.
You can then export this list as a .csv or Excel file to work on it more easily.
Note that Screaming Frog has a Crawl limit of 500 URLs per domain and crawling more than 500 URLs requires a Screaming Frog license.
This solution is suitable for sites with more than 30 URLs; it is scalable on a large scale.
Why aren't my website pages indexing?
There are several explanations if your Shopify store pages are not indexing. First, a simple explanation could simply be that your pages have a "No Index" tag. This tag makes indexing your page impossible by telling Google that you do not want to reference this page. While this tag can be useful for pages that are irrelevant for SEO, otherwise, it can destroy a site's SEO and have serious consequences on a brand's revenue.
To check if your pages are set to "Do Index", you can use Screaming Frog, which will directly indicate if the page has such a tag.
To remove a "No Index" tag, you must go to your robots.txt file. To do this, go to your FTP, where you can edit this .txt file with a text editor. In this file, you will normally find a "noindex" section where you can see a number of URLs. You will just need to delete the URL, save your robots.txt file, and re-upload it to your FTP. Check if the no index is still there via Screaming Frog, and submit the URL to the Search Console for faster indexing.
Another reason for your page not being indexed might be its age. Indeed, it usually takes one to two weeks for the Google bot to crawl your site and detect a new page. A solution to speed up the process is to first position this page in the sitemap.xml, and then resubmit the sitemap to the Search Console. You can also submit the URL directly to the Search Console and wait for its indexing.
A final reason for your website not being indexed could be a Google penalty. In this case, you will have to strictly follow Google's recommendations for natural referencing and wait for Google to reference your site.
A Google penalty is difficult to detect and resolve, we advise you to call on Shopify Experts to solve this problem as quickly as possible.
In summary:
Why are my website pages not indexing at all?
Check if your pages are not set to “noindex,” check that you haven’t incurred a Google penalty, check if your pages are positioned for the correct keyword, and finally, check that you have submitted your site to Google Search Console.
How do I check my indexing?
You can use "site:www.mysite.com" to check the general indexing of your site. Also, using the SEO tool Screaming Frog is an excellent way to compare indexed and non-indexed pages on a large scale thanks to Google's API.
Why use 301 redirects?
Using 301 redirects, also known as permanent redirects, will help you avoid duplicate content on your site and thus prevent a Google penalty. Furthermore, during a migration, it allows you to pass the old SEO "juice" to the new site.
How to do your SEO tagging on Shopify?
Keep one H1 per page, a minimum of 3 H2s per page, as well as H3s to structure your content. Include your main keyword in the tagging and use secondary keywords around it. Avoid having the same page title as an H1, and never have the same H1 on multiple web pages.
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