magento-1-2-improvement

Top 5 Magento 2 SEO Optimization Compared To Magento 1

by Hoang Nguyen Bao

This is top 5 Magento 2 SEO optimization compared to Magento 1 that you must know!

In the previous article, you must have known all the SEO features and settings of default Magento 2 and how to set up these features to make your website more SEO-friendly.
This article will go into more details of new Magento 2 SEO optimization features compared to Magento 1 and introduce a little bit about the BSS Magento 2 SEO extension which covers complete functions for the website’s SEO. 

Let’s get started.

I. Magento 2 SEO Optimization – Is It Better Than Magento 1?

magento-1-vs-magento-2-seo

Clearly.

There’s no doubt about it. Between the two versions, Magento 2 is definitely better in terms of SEO optimization.

Why?

Being released after the huge success of Magento 1, lots of improvement have made their way to Magento 2. From Rich Snippet, XML Sitemap to Meta Tags and many more, you could find the detail from below.

II. 5+ Magento 2 SEO Optimization

1. Rich Snippets and Schema.org Integration.

rich-snippets-magento-2-seo

Of all Magento 2 SEO optimization features, the first one should be mentioned here is Rich snippets.

If you don’t know, Rich Snippet basically is “the result which Google shows to the users in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).”

For example:

rich-snippets-magento 2

READ MORE Magento SEO URLs tutorial to optimize your URLs in under 5 minutes!

Do you know…

In Magento 1, there are no rich snippets at all and you have to install a Magento SEO plugin of Rich Snippets or use code customization to have this feature for your site display in SERPs.

Meanwhile, default Magento 2 supports you with some kinds of rich snippets such as price, review, and rating for the product page without any third-party extensions.

This is important.

These rich snippets benefit your site visibility and Click-to-through (CTR) increase rates on SERPs because customers can get more information about your product instead of a link and some text only.

magento-2-seo-improvement-rich-snippets
Rich snippets are displayed on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs)

Compared to Magento 1,

This function is one of the biggest Magento 2 SEO optimization features provided for users to help them control how their website is displayed with structured data on SERPs.

However, there are still some missing rich snippets such as availability, which is only added by using an extension like Magento 2 Rich Snippets, for instance.

In fact:

Rich Snippets is also one of the results of Schema displayed on SERPs as mentioned above. In Magento 2, schema.org is out-of-box integrated into the default template. Therefore, you don’t need to use code snippets or extensions to have schema kinds as before.

Pretty cool…

2. XML Sitemap.

xml-sitemap-magento-2-seo

Do you know that…

XML Sitemap in Magento 2 is not much different from that in Magento 1. However, there are still 3 things making Magento 2 sitemap more superior than Magento 1:

  • Magento 2 sitemap can be automatically submitted to Robots.txt to provide instructions to search engines that crawl your site.
  • You can set the sitemap file limits in Magento 2, which specifies the maximum number of URPs per file and the maximum file size when configuring the sitemap.
  • All the images can be automatically added to the sitemap.

This is one of the new updates in Magento 2 SEO optimization.

So how to navigate to XML Sitemap?

Easy.

Just follow these step:

  • On the Admin panel, click Stores. In the Settings section, select Configuration.
  • Under Catalog in the panel on the left, select XML Sitemap.
xml-sitemap-magento-2

Pro Tip: You can try Magento 2 XML Sitemap extension in case your business is bigger and you want to find a tool to generate and split XML sitemap for your store to boost up crawling by search engines,

3. Meta tags for products – Product Field Auto-generation.

meta-tag-magento-2

Let’s face it:

This new function is only available in Magento 2 SEO optimization, which determines a template for product metadata such as meta title, meta description, and meta keywords. 

It means that once you set up a fixed template with supported placeholders by default (name, SKU, and description), every product on your website has a similar metadata structure. 

That said,

It is better for you to save much time and effort, especially when your site has plenty of products and writing metadata for each item may be hard or even impossible.

How to do that ?

You can find out this setting under Store→Configuration→Catalog→Catalog→Product Field Auto-generation.

magento-2-seo-improvement-settings-meta-data-mask
Magento 2 SEO – auto generate meta tag for products

Nice.

Compared to Magento 2,

Magento 1 doesn’t have any options to automatically generate such of these meta tags for products, which is quite a pity for SEO effort.

Pro Tip: Use Magento 2 Meta Tags Template extension to optimize the process by auto-add meta description, meta title, meta keywords and description for products and categories in Magento 2.

4. Robots.txt Edit.

magento-2-robots-txt

This Magento 2 SEO optimization we mentioned here is about the ability to edit Robots.txt

This is pretty straightforward:

Both Magento 1 Community and Enterprise in the default don’t have a robots.txt file, which causes much trouble for developers and forces them to create on their own. Therefore, there are a lot of questions about how to create and configure a robots.txt or what this robots.txt looks or what should be included.

Yet, developers of Magento 2 platform don’t need to create this file manually as before because Magento 2 does support them to edit and configure robots.txt right in the admin.

How?

You can follow this path:

  • First, select Store -> Configuration.
  • Then go to General -> Design
  • As you can see, just selelct your Search Engine Robots from the drop-down man.
  • Finally,  just select the default storefront or one you want to create a robots.txt for.
robots-txt-magento-2

Amazing.

5. Google Adwords and Google Tag Manager.

google-adwrods-magento-2

When building a website based on Magento 1 platform, you will need to ask developers to add tags to the order confirmation page. Nonetheless, this task becomes easier than ever in the default Magento 2 because Google Adwords conversion tracking is integrated in advance. 

It’s the last amazing Magento 2 SEO optimization feature we want to introduce to you.

Here’s how to do it.

It’s simple.

Just go to Stores -> Configuration -> Sales -> Google API -> Google AdWords to make any necessary settings.

google-adwrods-magento-2-seo

Actually, Google Tag Manager is now included in Magento 2 Enterprise Edition (Magento 2 Commerce).

By configuring Google Tag Manager account and make settings in the backend, you can have this tool integrated on the website without a third-party extension or manual code interfere.

Easy.

III. 2+ Magento 1 SEO Features That Magento 2 Is Missing

Although Magento 2 is more advanced and much more improved than Magento 1, there are some missing functions that are better to be included, which means there’s room for more Magento 2 SEO optimization in the future.

1. HTML Sitemap

html-sitemap-magento-2-seo

Remember:

Both Magento 1 and Magento 2 platforms don’t support HTML sitemap, but XML sitemap. 

This is pretty straightforward:

Additional HTML sitemap benefits Magento websites to provide customers a clearer site structure, doubled the chance for your site to be crawled by search engines and ensure that all pages on the site can be reached by a link from another findable page.

Pro TipYou can install Magento 2 HTML Sitemap extension to equip HTML sitemap for your website, 

2. Product Tags

product-tag-magento-2-seo

Let’s face it:

Magento 2 does not allow store owners to add product tags to product pages. Product tags might be keywords or phrases to help identify products and their features.

Specifically, this removal of this function is opinions collected from the community for the purpose of deleting unnecessary existing features from Magento 2.

However, in many aspects, product tags are high-value for SEO of products. Hence, the only way to have product tags is now using Magento 2 SEO Plugins.

Somehow we doubt that there would be more Magento 2 SEO optimization features for any updates to come.

IV. Conclusion

magento-2-seo-plugin-conclusion

It’s easy to see…

Compared to Magento 1, the SEO module in Magento 2 is really more superior and outstanding in many settings. These Magento 2 SEO optimization features help store owners to not only enhance SEO effectively but also easily configure and manage SEO activities on their own websites.

Check out our Magento SEO checklist to understand how to optimize its features to the most!

In short:

Even though a lot of Magento 2 SEO optimization features have been made, there are quite a number of functions that could be included to improve your websites’ ranking.

Which means: 

To get a complete solution, you can install an Magento 2 SEO Suite for a full SEO features that would increase your ranking and traffic greatly.

And since there are so many SEO package in the market, you can read the full review of 7 Best Advanced SEO Suite Magento 2. That article is a full comparison about highlight features, rate and price of those most recommend SEO toolkits for Magento stores.

We sure believe that you can find the best one for your store from that list.

BSS Commerce is one of the leading Magento extension providers and web development services in the world. With experienced and certified Magento developers, we commit to bring high-quality products and services to optimize your business effectively. Furthermore, we offer FREE Installation – FREE 1-year Support and FREE Lifetime Update for every Magento extension.

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

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