- Shopify, Web Development
- 5 min
Custom Shopify Themes: A Game-Changer for Image-Centric Businesses
Learn why a custom Shopify theme can be a game-changer for image-heavy businesses, delivering value that ready-made themes might not match.
Looking for the Best Shopify SEO Apps? Read This Overview
Shopify is an excellent e-commerce platform. It comes pre-packed with all the features that allow online merchants to have an up-and-running store in a matter of hours. Having a Shopify store ‘out in the wild,’ though, is just the first tiny step on the road to success.
You also need to drive traffic to your brand-new Shopify site somehow. After all, what’s the use of going through the trouble of selecting the right niche, picking the best merchandise, and developing a sales strategy if just a few stray visitors miraculously stumble upon your store in a month or so?
This is when search engine optimization (SEO) comes to the rescue. It encompasses various techniques to improve search rankings.
Google and its competitors are merciless online machines that play by their own rules. If a store violates some of those, Google penalizes it by sending it to the farthest search results pages it generates. Some important SEO indicators that Shopify store owners should consider include:
- Keywords. The content of a Shopify store should include keywords that essentially represent terms that consumers type into the search console when looking for specific goods or services.
- How fast a Shopify store works on smartphones and tablets and how convenient it is to use on mobiles. This has been a crucial factor since Google introduced the mobile-first index a while ago.
- References to a Shopify store from other sources. The more links pointing to a store from other sites, the better. However, those must be respectable, trustworthy sources.
- Security. This means that a site should use the https protocol instead of http. A Shopify store must also be free of malware or illegal content. Otherwise, a severe penalty from Google is inevitable.
All in all, the number of rules that search engines use to determine a site rank is a couple of hundred. For laymen, trying to meet all of Google’s requirements is almost impossible. What to do then?
One way is to hire an SEO professional to assess the current state of affairs, do keyword research, and fix all the SEO issues across your Shopify store. There is another, much less expensive option, though. You can install one of the numerous SEO apps for Shopify that you can find on the official site.
One problem that you will encounter in this case is the sheer number of both free Shopify SEO apps and paid ones. They are quite similar in functionality. Choosing an appropriate app can be a tough task to handle.
To get you on the right track, we have prepared an overview of top Shopify SEO apps in three categories.
The Best Shopify Apps for SEO
Shopify Apps for General SEO/Fixing SEO Issues
SEO Doctor
Your Benefits
Every novice in the SEO realm will greatly appreciate this app. In essence, SEO Doctor is an equivalent of a real SEO expert. It points out every single issue with search engine optimization that your Shopify store has and either sets things straight automatically or gives you recommendations on what you can do yourself.
SEO Doctor is arguably the best SEO app Shopify merchants can use to decrease the loading time of their images without losing quality. Not only does it apply an advanced compression algorithm to reduce image sizes but also changes file names and alt-text to make them SEO-perfect.
Another amazing feature of SEO Doctor is the ability to automatically repair links that produce the 404 error. Neither you nor your customers will ever know about a broken link on your Shopify store.
Some Noteworthy Details
- Plans. SEO Doctor is available through two plans: free (manual SEO) and paid (automatic SEO). The former allows you to perform the SEO analysis of your Shopify store with your own hands. In the end, the app generates a list of all SEO errors it has discovered and suggests how you can get them fixed.
- Test for mobile-friendliness. You can find out if Google considers your Shopify store good enough to run on mobiles by conducting the corresponding test.
- Structured data. The app provides support for JSON-LD data. That means your Shopify store will have a better chance to rank higher on Google.
Plug in SEO
Your Benefits
When talking about fixing SEO issues, it’s impossible to pass by another of the best Shopify apps for SEO on the Internet. This is Plugin in SEO. It has a ton of useful features that every e-commerce site owner can dream of.
Need to make your headings SEO-optimized? Fix links that lead to nowhere? Create keyword-saturated content? Plug in SEO can help you with all of that and much more. Consider it your keenest and most attentive SEO adviser who can do all the dirty work for you. It performs automatic SEO audits and informs you of its results through an email or on demand.
What makes Plug in SEO different from similar tools is that it draws your attention to really significant SEO problems on your site. Fix them and your search ranking will grow. Why waste time on dealing with issues that have no visible effect on the organic traffic to your Shopify store?
Some Noteworthy Details
- Multilingual SEO. Does your target audience reside in a non-English speaking region or country? Then, Plug in SEO is a true find for you. The app provides support for multilingual SEO — a must-have feature in the age of globalization.
- SEO Bulk Editor. Changing 500 or 1,000 headings, titles, or meta descriptions one by one is a tedious and time-consuming process. Plug in SEO can help you do that in as little as a few minutes thanks to the SEO bulk editor.
- Structured Data. By installing Plug in SEO, you get everything you need to create rich snippets. From SEO breadcrumb list and logo to full Google Knowledge Graph support – the app has got your covered.
Smart SEO
Your Benefits
If time is your major concern, you will find this SEO app for Shopify invaluable. One of its strongest points is the ability to create meta tags in the “autopilot” mode. You don’t have to type in words and phrases, wasting your precious seconds and minutes.
You definitely know how important meta data is for improving search engine visibility, so its automatic generation kills two birds with one stone. You save time and get the right ingredients to increase your organic traffic.
Not on only that. Smart SEO creates meta tags in a split second. This is in contrast to many similar SEO apps for Shopify, which often take ages to complete the task.
Smart SEO offers Shopify store owners another outstanding functionality as far as meta tags are concerned: support for many languages. This will allow you to throw your e-commerce net as wide as possible. The more customers from different regions you attract, the higher revenue your receive.
Some Noteworthy Details
- Easy site map management. Shopify is currently one of the best e-commerce platforms across the board. However, store owners that use it have one serious complaint to make: the lack of site map management. This is where Smart SEO comes in. It’s one of the top Shopify apps for working with site maps. You can easily edit your site map to improve the SEO rankings of your site.
- Flexible pricing plans. Smart SEO is available through two plans: free and pro.
- Similarities: Both allow Shopify store owners to generate meta and alt tags, manipulate site maps, and implement nonindex tags.
- Differences: The pro plan ($4.99/month) provides the ability to work with structured data using the convenient JSON-LD format. The Pro plan subscribers can also remove microdata form their Shopify stores to avoid clutter.
All things considered, Smart SEO is among the best SEO Shopify apps when fast search engine optimization is required.
Top Shopify SEO Apps for Boosting Page Loading Speed
Plug in Speed Optimizer
Your Benefits
You may have beautiful product photos, easy-to-navigate UI, and convenient checkout. All this will mean nothing, though, if your Shopify store is slow. Search engines look upon page loading speed as one of the key indicators that affect SEO rankings.
Apart from hardware-related issues, slow site speed can be caused by large images and unoptimized CSS and JavaScript code. Instead of solving these problems manually, you can install Plug in Speed Optimizer.
This app will do all the hard work for you. It compresses every image on your site either with quality loss but maximum optimization (lossy compression) or with no quality loss (losslessly).
It also inlines/minifies JavaScript and CSS code of your Shopify store. This contributes to a significant reduction in page loading time. After some code has been minified, all additions to or deletions within it will be optimized in the automatic mode.
Some Noteworthy Details
- WEBP. The app supports the advanced image format WebP introduced by Google. The latter enables lossy and lossless compression of images for use on the Internet.
- Mobile and Desktop. The app works with both mobile and desktop versions of Shopify stores.
- Before/After comparison. You can compare the sizes of an original and compressed image.
Fire AMP
Your Benefits
While the previous app can work with desktop and mobile versions of Shopify stores, Fire AMP focuses on optimizing loading speed of mobile sites. With an ever-growing number of consumers who prefer shopping online from their smartphones and tablets, page loading speed on mobiles acquires a great significance.
Fire AMP is one of the best SEO apps for Shopify as far as the optimization for mobile Internet is concerned. The app uses AMP — a cutting-edge technology from Google — to build lightweight, fast pages for mobile devices. Just one second — that’s how long it takes for an AMP-validated page to appear on the screen of a smartphone or tablet.
The app allows you to make AMP pages in just one click. It’s also simple in installation and operation.
Some Noteworthy Details
- Third-Party Tools. Fire AMP integrates well with external tools.
- Customization. You can easily customize Fire AMP for maximum operational convenience.
- Useful tooling out of the box. Comes with Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and Tracking pixels already installed.
The Best Shopify SEO Apps for Image Optimization
SEO Image Optimizer
Your Benefits
According to some data, Google Image search firmly holds second spot after “pure” Google search in the rating of search engines. Therefore, you should take image optimization very seriously.
SEO Image Optimizer is the best Shopify app for SEO when it comes to adjusting the quality and sizes of all kinds of images. Suffice it to say that almost 225,000 Shopify site owners have installed this app.
The key features of the application include working with alt-text, optimizing meta tags, fixing broken links, as well as complete SEO optimization. The process is fully automated.
Some Noteworthy Details
- Regular image checks. The app checks new images once every seven days.
- Snippets. The paid plan ($24.99/month) includes Google snippets.
- Keywords. SEO Image Optimizer provides target keywords for images.
Alt Text Optimizer
Your Benefits
Image optimization doesn’t stop at reducing file sizes. When it comes to visuals, search engines rely on descriptive text to discover and index them. This text is placed in the alt tags of images.
The text in alt tags is required not only by Google and the company. It’s also an indispensable element for visually impaired people or those who’ve lost their eyesight. It helps them understand what or who is presented in a photo or image. Search engines are very particular about alt tags, giving them a high score in their algorithms. That’s why you should ensure that all your alt tags contain perfectly SEO-optimized text.
The Alt Text app is probably the best SEO app Shopify site owners can use for this purpose. It performs alt-text optimization behind the scenes for you. All you have to do is set an alt-text template and give the app an image description.
Some Noteworthy Details
- Everyday checks. The app performs everyday scanning of all alt tags to ascertain that they contain SEO-friendly text.
- No free plan. Alt Text doesn’t belong to the category of free Shopify SEO apps. That said, the monthly fee is very low: just $1.99. Great value for money!
- Easy to set up and use. The app is simple in installation and has a convenient and flexible template system.
Conclusion
Fast-loading sites that follow all key SEO rules have higher chances to get noticed by search bots and draw more organic traffic.
Shopify store owners can take advantage of the top Shopify SEO apps that the official App Store offers to fix any SEO issues on their sites.
Shopify SEO Frequently Asked Questions
Why Is SEO Important in E-Commerce?
In the highly competitive business world of today, no online store can survive without being discovered by search engines. If no one visits your website, you’ll have no sales and, consequently, no revenue. Consider SEO your market life line.
Does Shopify Have Any SEO Capabilities by Default?
The platform’s creators are well aware of the significance that SEO has for e-commerce sites. That’s why Shopify comes with some core SEO capabilities. These include defining canonical URLs, creating 301 redirects, automatically generating a sitemap, and some others. Shopify sites also have a mobile-optimized design, which is highly valued by Google and similar tools.
Should I Install One of Free Shopify SEO Apps or a Paid One?
Finding a quality, feature-rich Shopify SEO app that’s completely free is very challenging. Try installing an app that has both free and paid plans. Use the free version for a while to see if it gives you the required value. If it does, subscribe to the paid plan.
If you have any questions about the apps we’ve described in this post or need to optimize your Shopify store in any way, the GetDevDone Shopify Ecommerce Development Team is always happy to help. With over 15 years of experience in e-commerce development, we’re true Shopify experts. Just tell us what you need. We guarantee the highest quality of service.
