Quick Shopify SEO Tip to Increase Google Ranking

A big issue that Shopify stores can have when being indexed by Google is being flagged for duplicate content, and this is just because of how Shopify actually structures the different pages on the site.

So let me quickly explain what this means, how it looks, and then I have a one minute quick fix for you as well. You just have to put some code into your Shopify theme, but don't worry, I'll show you exactly what to do.

Shopify's URL Structure Problem

When you create a product with Shopify, you can have it listed in a variety of different collections. Let's say you have a product that's black boots, you can have it listed in the women's collection, the apparel collection, shoes, boots, black shoes, and shoes under $50.

I mean, you could create so many different collections that this product could live in and it would all still be relevant. The problem with that though, is that each time you put a product in a different collection, Shopify then creates a different URL for it to actually link in from that collection.

So, let's say if that product is in five different collections, well now you have five different links to the exact same product page but, the URLs are just a little bit different based off of that collection name.

This can be problematic for Google.

It sees it as all these duplicate pages and the product page looks the same; the URLs just a little bit different.

Google thinks, okay, well they're trying to trick the system and it's just all this duplicate content. The biggest issue is that Google just doesn't know which page is the most important to show to your viewers in the search results.

So, it's important to then highlight and say, okay, Google, this is the collection or the product page that I want you to showcase. I'm not at all saying that you need to just have one product per collection.

You can put it in as many collections as you want that are, of course, relevant. However, you want to just make sure that you let Google know which product URL you want to actually have as your main one.

So, whenever people are linking to your site and you are building up your link juice for all of your search engine optimization efforts, you have an exact URL that is being focused on and is going to be promoted more.

Fixing the Problem

So to do this, we need to add just a small line of code into your Shopify theme to again, to highlight which one Google should be prioritizing so it doesn't get rid of any of the other URLs that you're linking in through different collections.

However, it's just going to showcase this is the one to prioritize. So to add this in, first you're gonna need to go to your Shopify back-end under "Online Store" and "Themes", make sure you're on your current published live theme, and then click "Edit Code".

Once you're in this back in area, be careful, you don't wanna mess anything up here, but you can see on the left hand side you have a layouts section and you wanna click on "theme.liquid" there.

Then at the top of the site, within the head tags, you're going to add this little bit of code.

Add this code to your Shopify Theme 👉 <link rel="canonical" href="{{ canonical_url }}">

PLEASE NOTE: Some Shopify Themes may already have this code added in so make sure to double-check it isn't added in first before you add it in.

This code is then going to just prioritize your product page individually and get rid of the other bits of the collection that could be added into your url.

So, you're showcasing the main product page as the priority, and that's it, you're done. You've got that code added in, make sure you hit save, and again, just be careful over there and don't mess with anything else.

Creating URL Redirects

Also, just make sure that anytime you're either removing a product or a collection from your online store, that you are actually redirecting the URL so that way you don't have any broken links on your site. 

If you've pinned something on Pinterest and now that product is removed, you're actually linking that URL to another product or another area of your site, so it doesn't just have the viewer drop off.

To do that, you're going to go to "Online Store" and "Navigation", and then you'll see it "View URL Redirects" there. Here you'll just type in where you're redirecting from, so that old URL that you're now removing that product or collection or page, and then the new URL as well.

Now this is just one piece of an overall strategy for SEO, for onsite optimization for your Shopify store. I go into more detail in how to optimize your site for the search engines based off of keywords in one the videos on my channel.

So if you're looking to do more SEO for your Shopify store and you're wanting to get ranked on page one of Google, which I mean come on, don't we all? Then, make sure to check that video out next.

SEO for Shopify stores is so important to get your store ranked higher in Google and by adding in this code to your Shopify theme it fixes a big issue for Shopify stores. Plus I also show you how to quickly avoid broken links for your Shopify store which can also really hurt your SEO ranking.

The code to insert in your theme can be copied and pasted below. PLEASE NOTE: Some Shopify Themes may already have this code added in so make sure to double-check it isn't added in first before you add it in.

Add this code to your Shopify Theme 👉 <link rel="canonical" href="{{ canonical_url }}">

Watch more Shopify SEO Tutorials in my Playlist Here:  https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdZSavWrx_HaU-lsBK80L8FjzszGDoqMk