Magento optimization
Optimizing the Magento platform for SEO is one of the most important challenges facing the E-commerce Manager. The search engine is still one of the most important sources of traffic for potential customers. The search phrases usually return hundreds of records, and everyone wants to be in the top ten, preferably in the top three of search results. Magento makes it much easier to achieve this goal, and the implementation of Magento alone is not enough. In this article you will learn how to help optimize the SEO Magento, in such a way that this goal becomes possible to achieve.
MAGENTO OPTIMIZATION THROUGH THE USE OF MODULES
Magento is the most extensive e-commerce platform with huge community support – at the start, it gives you a huge advantage over the competition. Below we will present the best modules that will bring your Magento store to a completely different level that is not available to the competition.
COMBINE-HARVESTER FOR MAGENTO OPTIMIZATION FOR SEO
For starters, it’s worth paying attention to the Mageworx Seo Suite Ultimate. This is one of the largest combine-harvesters for Magento and at the same time one of the best options when it comes to optimizing your store. The module allows optimization of both category and product cards, and after its installation, it is possible to significantly improve the efficiency of the positioning of the online store. Among the many functionalities, it’s worth paying attention to:
– Product page templates – automatically optimizing meta titles, descriptions of URLs, short and long descriptions, keywords, tags of product images and tags h1 on pages. What’s more, they are also broken down into individual store views.
– Category templates – just like in the case of products, they allow for automatic optimization of the metadata and a long description of the category,
– Possibility to create pagination URL format
– Adds a tag for Google Rel = prev / next
– Allows you to optimize URLs by removing parent categories from them
– Creates friendly links to product reviews
– Add canonical tags to the feedback subpage,
– Enables dynamic creation of metadata based on product attributes
– Allows full control of canonical tags in the store,
– Resolves duplicate content problems
– Uses the hreflang attribute to display the content properly
– Automatically adds links to selected phrases on pages,
– Allows you to control the metadata on the installed Aheadworks blog,
– Add Rich Snippets tags
– Allows you to set 301/302 redirects for deleted categories along with setting redirection times and priorities
– Introduces an advanced breadcrumb
– Creates optimized sitemaps
– Ability to create a report with duplicate or missing data
The above list is just a substitute for the possibilities offered by the module in terms of optimizing the Magento store. All this makes it the absolute number 1 when it comes to optimizing a store based on the Magento platform for SEO.
INTERNAL LINKING
Internal linking is an important technique used to optimize SEO, widely used and extremely effective in the case of online promotions. Thanks to the Automatic Internal Links module created by Mirasvit, it is possible to automatically link links to promoted subpages in the store. This way, the PageRank of individual subpages is strengthened, Google’s indexing of new sub-pages is accelerated. By using specific keywords, the significance of selected subpages is increased and the users can get to the specified information.
AUTOMATIC BINDING OF PRODUCTS
Although the automatic binding of products does not have a direct impact on SEO, a good preparation of links significantly increases the usability and comfort of using the website by the user. The module issued by Aheadworks Automatic Related Products is irreplaceable in this case. It allows you to familiarize customers with alternative or related products, the appropriate setting of the module display on the page, and most importantly, it is possible to fully automate it.
CONTENT OPTIMIZATION IN MAGENTO
ReloadSEO is an extension that allows you to understand visitors to a given store better. The extension allows matching of texts by providing keywords optimized for a given store. In addition, it allows you to evaluate the saturation of keywords for each product card and article in the Magento store.
INCREASE MAGENTO PERFORMANCE AND SEO WILL IMPROVE
One of the key factors optimizing SEO is the speed of loading, online stores are no exception to this, increase the efficiency of the Magento store and improve its SEO results. To increase the efficiency of the system, you need technical knowledge about technologies such as Varnish, Full Page Cache, Redis, SOLR, Elastic Search, CDN, Nqinx or database optimization, stores that obtain this knowledge will also gain a significant advantage over the competition. In addition to technical aspects to improve the SEO in the store, it is also worth sticking to a few important tips.
OPTIMIZATION TIPS THAT GIVE IMMEDIATE EFFECTS
In addition to using ready-made modules and increasing the efficiency of the store using optimization techniques, there are also many ways that can be introduced by any user who wants to improve their search engine position.
DO NOT USE MANUFACTURER’S DESCRIPTIONS
Manufacturer’s descriptions, despite the fact that they are a convenient solution, have one major disadvantage – they are used by hundreds of other stores, as a result, content is duplicated. Unique content is a key factor for search engines, and any duplication has a negative impact on search results. Add something to the descriptions of goods and improve your search engine rankings. Take the extra time and resources to write product descriptions, and it will certainly bring results quickly.
USE KEY PHRAZES IN IMAGES’ ALTS
The Alt attribute was formerly intended to display instead of images in case of a slow internet connection, but over time its role has evolved and is now used by search engines to optimize search, optimize image search, and better orientation for robots that search for what is on the page precisely.
IMPLEMENT THE STRATEGY OF LINK BUILDING
The right strategy for building external links to your store significantly improves SEO optimization. This is not about cataloging, this method is a thing of the past, it can often harm instead of help, find partners with similar topics, running real websites, for which content can be prepared in exchange for publishing your link. Do not forget about internal linking, which is just as important as external linking.
USE SIMILAR PRODUCTS
If the user was on the product page, which he was not interested in, try to suggest similar products, he will not leave the site immediately and will not have a negative impact on the ranking of your Magento store.
USE POPULAR PRODUCTS
Show popular products that generate the most interest on the main page, thanks to which you will increase user engagement and improve store statistics.
CREATE AN ENGAGING PAGE 404
Links to removed subpages remain in search engines for some time, clicking them results in displaying the 404 error sub-page. Adjust the page accordingly, placing the most popular landing pages, increasing user engagement and reducing traffic loss.
SSL CERTIFICATE IS A RESPONSIBILITY
An SSL certificate is not only security for users but one of the components of the site’s positioning algorithm. At the moment, SSL certificates are also available free of charge, currently, the certificate is not an alternative, but the responsibility of every website owner seriously thinking about high search results.
THINK ABOUT A GOOD NAVIGATION AND AN INTERNAL SEARCH ENGINE
If a user entering a site, has to leave it and use Google again to find products on your site, it has a negative impact on the SEO of your site. A well-prepared navigation and search engine will improve the results of your website.
REMOVE SHOP CODES FROM URLS
By default, Magento adds store codes to URLs, this solution may be good for the database, but it has a negative impact on SEO, disable it by changing the relevant setting (Configuration -> Network -> Search engine optimization).
CONSIDER THE CORRECT REDIRECT
It is possible that part of the offer has been removed, do not forget about such cases and add correct 301 redirects. This way you will keep the ranking of a given subpage and avoid errors that lower the position of your website. Additionally, remember about 302 redirects and that they do not transmit power to the new page, therefore use them for comparison links, wish lists or for links with currency switching.
DON’T FORGET THE ROBOTS.TXT FILE
The robotic file adapted to the Magento store is a very important element of the entire implementation. Do not forget to include a link to the Sitemap in it and check it in Google’s webmaster tools.
ADJUST THE WEBSITE FOR MOBILE DEVICES
Responsive website is the foundation, currently, it is the minimum necessary to allow the website to get the right positions on mobile devices.
BLOG
Although blogging takes a lot of work, it is still one of the best ways to get traffic to the site. However, it should be remembered that it is not traffic that converts directly. A blog is a long-term investment, affecting not only direct purchases but also brand recognition.
USE RICH SNIPPETS
Extended descriptions for search robots are the foundation of any well-implemented online store and significantly improve SEO. For example, product reviews appear in search results and provide a competitive advantage over other e-commerce websites
CONSIDER AMP OR PWA IMPLEMENTATION
The technology that speeds up page loading is always a good solution for improving SEO and the usability of using a web application. They not only reduce the loading time but significantly improve the parameters of the use of the website by users significantly affecting the SEO of the online store.
USE SOCIAL NETWORKING
Direct traffic from social networks to your website, never the other way around. By increasing traffic on the website, you improve statistics and its evaluation by search engines.
OPTIMIZING MAGENTO SETTINGS
Magento itself contains a number of settings that have a significant impact on the results obtained by the online store. When running a store you should always remember to enable friendly links on the server, change the header of the default page, complete the meta headers for product pages, categories, and descriptions, or use one of the add-ons listed at the beginning of this article. Remember to use different headers on each subpage from <h1> – only once, after <h2>, <h3>, <h4>. Turn on the cache to speed up the store loading. Enable noindex in the Magento panel on pages such as a wish list or shopping process, remember to generate a sitemap and enable canonical tags for the product card and category card. Use the additions to optimize images or the kraken.io tool. Use the Google Insights tool to check what items you can still improve in your store. If you follow the rules described on the following page, the results of your Magento store will improve significantly when it comes to items in the search results.
