Best Magento SEO Tips To Help You Conquer The Traffic

If you are an online merchant who uses Magento, you know that the success of your store depends heavily on its SEO performance. The better your SEO strategy, the wider your potential customer base, and the stronger your profit margins. Managing a store with many products is not easy, though.

Magento, now part of Adobe as Adobe Commerce with Magento Open Source as the free edition, includes many features that support SEO. If you set them up correctly, you will see results. The tips below apply to Magento 2 and Adobe Commerce. Magento 1 reached end of life in 2020 and no longer receives security patches, so if you are still on it, migration is the first priority.

Keep Magento and your extensions up to date

This may go without saying, but it matters more than you think. New releases include security patches, bug fixes and performance and SEO improvements. Outdated versions miss these and put your store at risk. Plan regular updates, test them in a staging environment first and keep your extensions current too.

Use clean, readable URLs

URLs are a minor ranking factor, but they affect user experience. A URL full of codes or random letters does nothing for your brand and is hard to share. Short, descriptive URLs that match the product or category name are better. Magento lets you edit the URL key for each product and category, and it creates URL rewrites when you change them, so check that old URLs redirect properly to the new ones.

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Write unique title tags and meta descriptions

Both your meta titles and meta descriptions should include the main keyword for the page. Put it near the beginning of the title, and keep titles short enough to show in full in search results. Write each one by hand for your most important products and categories, and use templates for the rest, so you avoid duplicates. Meta descriptions do not directly affect rankings, but a clear one can improve your click-through rate.

Name product images clearly and write alt text

A common mistake is leaving images with default file names such as “IMG0003.” Image file names are part of the image URL, and search engines read them to understand what the picture shows. Use a short, descriptive name such as “clear-plastic-bottle.” Add alt text to every product image too. It helps search engines and anyone using a screen reader, and it shows if the image fails to load.

Make speed a priority

Slow stores lose shoppers, and page experience is part of how Google evaluates sites. Many shoppers will leave if a page takes too long to appear. There are several ways to speed up a Magento store:

• Turn on full page caching, and use a caching layer such as Varnish if your host supports it.
• Use a content delivery network (CDN) to serve images and static files.
• Minify and bundle CSS and JavaScript according to your theme’s recommendations.
• Compress images and use modern formats.
• Remove extensions and scripts you do not use.
• Choose hosting built for Magento, and monitor Core Web Vitals in Google Search Console.

Generate an XML sitemap and submit it

A sitemap helps search engines find and crawl every important page. Magento can generate an XML sitemap for you under Marketing, SEO & Search, Site Map. Set it to include your products, categories and CMS pages, then submit the sitemap URL in Google Search Console and reference it in your robots.txt file.

Check that your site is not blocking search engines

Make sure nothing is stopping search engines from indexing your store. In the admin, go to Content, Design, Configuration, choose your store view and open Search Engine Robots. Confirm that the default meta robots setting is INDEX, FOLLOW. A NOINDEX setting left over from development or staging is a common reason a store does not appear in search. Also review your robots.txt file to be sure it does not disallow important sections.

Use canonical tags and manage duplicate content

Stores often create duplicate pages through layered navigation, filters and products that appear in several categories. In the configuration, under Stores, Configuration, Catalog, Search Engine Optimization, enable canonical link meta tags for categories and products. This tells search engines which version of a page to rank.

Link your products and categories together

Internal links help search engines understand how your pages relate and help shoppers find more products. Use Magento’s related products, up-sells and cross-sells features, which you can set on each product under Catalog, Products. Link from your blog posts and buying guides to relevant categories and products too.

Show customer reviews and add product structured data

Reviews are a major factor in buying decisions, and they add fresh, relevant content to your product pages. Add product structured data so search engines can show details such as price, availability and ratings when your products are eligible. Customer reviews that mention the product in their own words also help your pages match real search queries.

Make mobile experience a core part of your store

Google uses the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking, so your store must work well on phones. Choose a responsive theme, test the checkout on real devices and make sure product pages load quickly on mobile connections. Older advice about installing a special AMP extension no longer applies, because AMP is no longer needed for Google’s mobile features.

Let SmartSites help you build a winning Magento SEO strategy

If you want a Magento SEO strategy that brings in more traffic, SmartSites can help. Our SEO specialists work transparently, providing reports and actionable insights based on a detailed analysis of your data. If you are ready to grow your store’s organic traffic, please contact us today.