magento-seo-guide

20+ Must-have Magento SEO Checklists That Couldn’t Be Missed

by Summer

Stay in the blog for a detailed Magento SEO checklist, Magento SEO Guide, and Magento 2 SEO optimization solution.  

SEO has always been a thing that every Magento store owner puts in a lot of effort. An SEO performance without any mistake can improve the rank of a site significantly. As a result, it can reach more users who search for products or services that the website concerned about. 

However, it’s never been easy to perform perfect SEO. Here we bring you a detailed Magento SEO Guide, which notes 20 SEO rules you should follow. 

>>>>DON’T IGNORE Advanced SEO Suite for Magento 2 to better your SEO and get higher rankings on SERPs.

magento_2_seo_extensions_and_free_audit

Technical Magento SEO Guide

Technical SEO is the process of optimizing your website so that search engines can easily crawl and index it. Even if you have the best content, a bad SEO performance still harms your rankings seriously. 

For that reason, reinspecting technical elements on your website can help you ensure they meet SEO standards in the Magento SEO Checklist. Please note that this is not a complete Magento SEO Guide, but it will press important rules. 

A solid technical basis allows search engines to quickly and easily identify and understand all of your material.

Consider the technological foundation of a website to be similar to the foundation of a building. The entire construction benefits from a stable base. An unstable foundation, on the other hand, leads the entire edifice to collapse.

1. URL structure

A URL is a key to a website. So, make sure every page on your website has relevantly titled URLs. It not only helps users easily find out the information they need but also reduces the bounce rate of a page. 

SEO Tip: You can apply this logic but straightforward URL structure on your website: 

  • For category Page: website.com/category/
  • For sub-category page: website.com/category/sub-category/
  • For product page: website.com/category-sub-category/product-name/

2. HTTP vs. HTTPS

HTTP-vs-HTTPS(Source: seopressor.com)

Magento fully supports serving your visitors through a secure connection, which is a prerequisite for success. Using HTTPS is especially important for eCommerce sites since it all comes down to earning – and preserving – your visitors’ confidence.

For short, websites with HTTPS feature better security than those with HTTP, thanks to the use of SSL (secure sockets layer) to create a secure encrypted connection between the server and the browser. The extra security can be very critical to websites that collect sensitive data from their users.

Thus, Google has officially announced since 2014 that HTTPS is preferred over HTTP in ranking websites. 

SEO Tip: If possible, switch your website to HTTPS to be more highly appreciated by Google. 

3. XML Sitemap

XML sitemap plays the role of listing all important pages in your website to ensure search engines can easily crawl and index them. 

In Magento 2, the XML sitemap is submitted to Google Search Console; then Google will follow it to index your web pages. To configure XML sitemap, navigate Stores => Configuration => Catalog => XML Sitemap to open the basic sitemap. For a detailed guide to set up, check the Magento SEO Guide for XML sitemap here. 

  • Categorize your content appropriately.
  • Never include “noindex” URLs in your sitemap. 
  • If your website has too many links to add into just one sitemap, you can create a separate sitemap for each category. 
  • Give Magento 2 XML Sitemap a shot to support search engines to crawl better. 

4. HTML Sitemap

HTML sitemap is a necessary element for an e-commerce website so that users can easily navigate it. Though an HTML sitemap has no impact on how search engines appreciate your website, it is suitable for the user experience. An HTML sitemap, hence, is an element your site should have.

SEO Tip: You can get support from Magento 2 HTML Sitemap to have an advanced HTML sitemap. 

html-sitemap-seo-apple

5. Canonical Tags and Hreflang Tags

If you have one more URL with the same content, Canonical Tags will help your site stay away from bad duplicate content problems. Then, you no longer worry about being banned by Google. 

On the other hand, Hreflang Tags solve that issue for multi-store view Magento sites which have very small differences between store views. 

Tips for Magento 2 SEO Optimization: Here are cases in which you should use those tags. Remember that Hreflang Tags and Canonical Tags are not antagonistic that can be used simultaneously. 

Canonical-Tags-and-Hreflang-tags

6. Rich snippets

Snippets display extra information between the URL and the description of a webpage on SERPs. For example: 

rich-snippets

In default Magento 2, only rating and review of pages are configured to be visible in the SERPs. Rich snippets will allow a Magento store to show more details of a product page such as Price, Availability, Custom properties to stimulate users to click on it, increase CTR. 

SEO Tip: By adding Rich snippets, you will make your webpages more noticeable and reliable on SERPs. Magento 2 Rich Snippets is a tool for it. 

7. Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs show navigation paths to let users easily navigate a website. They are visible not only on product or category pages but also on SERPs. Those elements are extremely vital for e-commerce websites with a deep and complicated structure. 

SEO tip: No matter how your website is structured, it’s always better to show breadcrumbs so that your site will look more professional. 

8. Robot txt file

The robots.txt file is located at the root of your Magento 2 installation. Search engine crawlers will read this file for the instruction on how to crawl pages of your website. For that reason, it plays an integral part in the Magento SEO Checklist. 

Remember these options in default Magento 2 to define how crawlers should read your pages correctly. 

  • INDEX, FOLLOW: Tells crawlers to index the site and to check for changes later.
  • NOINDEX, FOLLOW: Tells crawlers to avoid indexing the site but still check for changes later.
  • INDEX, NOFOLLOW: Tells crawlers to index the page once, but do not check for changes later.
  • NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW:  Tells web crawlers do not index the page and do not check for changes later.

Additionally, admins are able to customize instruction for robot.txt files from the backend. 

Robot-txt-file

SEO Tip: The tip of the Magento SEO Checklist is to exclude from indexing some private pages or pages with internal use. Do the same with cart and login pages or checkout and thank-you page. 

9. Navigation

No user stays long on a website with poor navigation because it’s hard for them to browse it. The Googlebot can consume a lot of your crawl bandwidth crawling in and out of navigation filters in many cases. 

SEO Tip: Using Ajax has been a trendy solution for SEO-friendly navigation in e-commerce stores. Though it is not supported in default Magento 2, you can find a lot of available plugins for this feature. 

web-navigation

10. Site speed

Site speed is obviously one of the most fundamental factors affecting SEO that is evaluated by Google. As you know, Magento 2 websites feature a faster loading speed than those built on Magento 1. However, you’re still able to improve your site speed significantly better. 

SEO Tip: 

  • Set up flat category, merge CSS and JS files from the backend.  Otherwise, using Content Delivery Network, Cache Management, and optimizing images are also common tips. 
  • Besides, installing Defer JavaScript Extension on your website is a convenient way to improve your site speed directly. 

GET full Magento Speed Optimization checklists  

11. Open Graph and Twitter Cards

Why do these tags matter? Whenever users share a page on social networks, that page will appear in the text form only. Open Graph and Twitter Cards make the appearance of shared pages more appealing on social networks with preview image, description, and titles. 

Open-Graph-and-Twitter-Cards

SEO Tip: Tell your developers to include Open Graph and Twitter Cards tags on your website. It’s not a difficult task, but it’s useful in the long run. 

12. Support Google AMP

Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), which was launched by Google in 2016, allows you to create web pages that load almost instantly on mobile phones. With four times faster loading speed, using AMP is expected to be an SEO trend you should update. 

SEO Tip: 

  • Though default Magento 2 does not support the AMP version of a page, you can bring it to your site by installing Magento 2 AMP. 
  • Keep your website structure as simple as possible because a so deep structure can weaken your page authority.
  • Keep your product pages accessible with fewer than three clicks. As a result, Googlebot can index your pages with ease. 

Content Magento SEO Checklist

For any store owner, creating a Magento SEO checklist has always been a difficult task. When implementing search engine optimization on your site, you may avoid committing SEO blunders by using the checklist.

Whether you’re in the yellow (or, much worse, the red), the speed and performance of your website must be addressed. Because Google emphasizes speedy sites when generating search results if you don’t, your site and business will suffer in terms of online traffic, leads, and revenue.

You can help your website rank higher in search results and gain the benefits of being at the top by using our site speed and performance checklist.

Content-Magento-SEO-Checklist

13. SEO-friendly URL

Every URL should be short and readable with users. It’s also recommended to include the keyword that its content mainly focuses on. An effective and common way to name a URL is putting hyphens to separate every single word. 

Finally, ensure there is no capital letter included in your URLs if you want them to be SEO-friendly. 

14. Keyword

The primary purpose of SEO is to boost up the ranking of a webpage whenever users search for relevant keywords. That’s why keyword research is indispensable in every SEO effort. 

You’re probably familiar with Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs Tool, or Moz which are commonly used for keyword research. Those available tools are very useful that helps you figure out trendy keywords and what keywords your competitors choose to optimize their products. 

SEO Tip: The keywords with high search volume are not always better choices. The more people search a keyword, the more difficult it is to optimize your pages by that keyword. The wisest strategy is choosing keywords that your resources can deal with their difficulty. 

15. Meta title

The Meta title is the first and most critical thing that stimulates customers to click at a product. Always include target keywords in every title and highlight them with impressive content if you expect great CTR. 

SEO tip: 

  • Keep the length of titles between 50 and 65 characters. Too long titles are not good for SEO. 
  • Learn from effective title formulas that impress readers
  • Include your unique selling point at your titles if possible

16. Meta description

Along with Meta Title, Meta Description gives additional information to persuade users to go to a webpage in SERPs. 

SEO tip: 

  • One more time, let’s put keywords in your meta description. 
  • Google considers the most optimal length for a meta description to be from 155 to 160 characters. So, you can keep your titles between 50 and 160 characters. 
  • Get the support of Magento 2 Meta Tags Template extensions 

17. Product description

Once users go to a product page, it’s probably an item they are seeking. So, every product page should be optimized well to reach prospective customers easily. 

SEO tip: 

  • Write the description as detailed as possible. 
  • Use the H1, H2, H3 and try to put keywords in those. 
  • It’s ideal to have the keywords in the first 100 words. 
  • Ensure the density of the main keyword fluctuates from 3% to 5%. 
  • Create cross-links between internal URLs 

18. Images & videos

Recommendation for the Magento SEO Checklist: 

The most important factor of images you should care about initially is Alt tags. You must have related Alt Tags in all images to meet SEO requirements. Inserting keywords in those tags can improve SEO, but the overuse can be realized by Google. Hence, using Alt Tags naturally is our tip. 

Additionally, you should care about the size of images or videos on a page as they can slow down the loading speed. If necessary, let’s reduce image size so that your pages can load faster. 

19. Social share integration

Social-share-integration

It would be a big shortage for those who do not exploit the strength of social networks. Integrating social share buttons in your pages will increase the chance to reach more users on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.

SEO tip: As you know, default Magento 2 does not integrate social share buttons into it. But you can completely install plugins for this function. Magento Marketplace is a source where you may find handy but free extensions. 

20. User-generated content

In addition to social share buttons, user-generated content will motivate the interaction of users to your store by Q&A, reviews, and ratings. The more interaction pages get, the more Google appreciates those and boosts up your content on SERPs. 

Here is an example of a customer’s review on our website. 

 user-generated-content

SEO tip: You know that default Magento 2 has configurations for review and rating. However, you still can find support from a Magento 2 Q&A plugin to motivate customers to interact more. As a result, this will increase the time on the page and reduce the bounce rate on your pages, which really matters for SEO.  

Once you follow this Magento SEO Guide, your website will get closer to the best ranks on Google.  

Wrapping Up

BSS Commerce has accomplished store owners with quality SEO Pro Magento 2 Extension and other Magento 2 extensions. If you care about any of our products and services, it’s always an honor for us to support you. Thanks for your interest in our blog.

magento-2-seo-extension

BSS Commerce is one of the leading Multi-platform eCommerce solutions and web development services providers in the world. With experienced and certified developers, we commit to bring high-quality products and services to optimize your business effectively.

CONTACT NOW to let us know your problems. We are willing to support you every time.

Next Reading Suggestions

© 2019 BSS Commerce owned by THANH CONG INTER ., JSC. All Rights Reserved.
Business registration certificate no. 0106064469 issued by Hanoi Department of Planning and Investment on 19 December 2019.
Legal Representative: Mr. Nguyen Quang Trung.