Magento SEO: Best Practices to Rank and Get Organic Traffic

For any website to rank and gain organic traffic, it must follow the best practices for search engine optimization. Currently, there are 250,000+ Magento websites and the competition is tough. For the success of eCommerce stores, the merchants need to follow the best Magento SEO practices (off-page and on-page optimization).

In this blog, we focus on the SEO that can help to drive traffic and improve the click-through-rate (CTR).

5 Best Magento SEO Practices

The five best Magento practices for search engine optimization include optimizing URL structure, adding metadata, avoiding duplicate content, working on XML sitemaps, and implementing the canonical URLs.

Optimize URL Structure

One of the most important parts of SEO for Magento store is creating optimized URL structure. A slug plays the most important role in optimizing the content for crawlers. Many websites do not create a proper structure for the URLs which affect the SEO. Therefore, a URL must have the five most important parts i.e.,

1. Scheme
2. Subdomain
3. Top-level domain
4. Second-level domain
5. Sub directory

Below is an example of a URL that contains that above mentioned parts for optimization:

In addition to that, Magento recommends the following URL structure that you can utilize for optimization:

• Category page: website.com/category/
• Subcategory page: website.com/category/sub-category/
• Product page: website.com/category-sub-category/product-name/

So, if you have product-based website, this structure will help you in creating an optimized link with proper hierarchy that enables crawler to get the information from page.

Metadata in Magento 2 SEO

Metadata is an important SEO factor that improves the website visibility in search result. The main elements include meta title (clickable headline and should be concise and keyword-rich), meta description (a summary designed to boost click-through rates).

Speaking of metadata, image ALT text is also one of most important SEO factors to optimize images for your website and crawler. Add descriptive keywords relevant to the image and page context for image optimization especially when you are showing product images.

Magento 2 supports meta keywords but also focuses on modern SEO like canonical tags to prevent duplicate content issues. In addition to that, your Magento store must have structured breadcrumbs for better site indexing. To configure in Magento 2, do this:

• Navigate to Content > Design > Configuration to set global metadata for the website.

Proper Internal Linking

Internal linking is the process of linking one page one the website to other different pages on your website (relevant links only).

It plays a critical role in optimizing your website.

The best SEO practice for internal linking includes adding links to your home page, blog pages, and web pages. It helps crawler in understanding the importance of web pages. You can create internal links using images, anchor texts, and CTA buttons.

Below are the important points for internal linking in your Magento store:

• Inbound links
• Site Hierarchy
• Guided Navigation
• Site Map
• Optimized Store View
• Breadcrumb Navigation
• URLs to related products and searches
• Links in Articles & other content
• Tag Clouds and Tag Pages

XML Sitemaps

XML sitemaps are important for crawlers that provide them with the latest information. It informs crawler of the pages that are ready and available to crawl. This ensures that your page is visible in the search results, and this leads to website visibility.

In terms of Magento store, the XML sitemap sets up the products, images, and added web pages. When the crawler starts working on its process, the crawler gets the information and makes it visible on Google. For optimization, you list the URLS of the website and search engine understands that priority for indexation.

You can save the sitemap file sitemap.xml for regular updating.

However, if you want to prevent some pages from getting crawled, then add robots.txt.

Implement Canonical URLs for homepage and web pages

Content duplication is not encouraged by Google. Therefore, for Magento SEO, make sure that canonical tags are well implemented. The purpose of the canonical meta tags is to inform search engines on which page to index especially when a few URLs have identical content. The best approach is to pick the URL of the master page and index it as an original version of the content. This keeps the search engine from flagging content on your website for similar or plagiarized.

Conclusion

Magento SEO is one of the most crucial parts for the success of your eCommerce store. Many eStores take it lightly and doubt the significance of implementing the search engine optimization practices which costs them value, money, and sales. Also, SEO is not one time effort as there is a continuous need to keep your website updated with Google updates. For this, the better approach is to leverage Magento agency services that can help you optimize your store, leading to increased sales and overall better experience for the visitors.

FAQs

How to create and submit a sitemap for Magento store optimization?

Creating and submitting an XML sitemap for Magento store optimization involves several steps, from generating a sitemap to submitting and keeping it a number of You can follow the below-written steps to generate a sitemap and later submit it as well.

• In your Magento admin panel, go to Stores > Configuration > Catalog > XML Sitemap and configure the settings. Then navigate to Marketing > SEO & Search > Sitemap to generate the sitemap.
• Upload the sitemap to your root directory (e.g., yourstore.com/sitemap.xml) and submit it to Google via Google Search Console (under Sitemaps in the left-hand menu).
• Magento automatically updates the sitemap if configured properly, ensuring search engines can crawl new pages.

How can external links help in Magento SEO?

By adding external links to your Magento store from reputable and authority websites increases your store’s domain authority, also called DA. The external links signal search engines that your content is factual and reliable. You must focus on acquiring high-quality backlinks through strategies like guest blogging, partnerships, or content marketing. Avoid spammy or irrelevant links, as they can negatively impact your SEO.

What are the basic SEO settings I should configure in Magento?

To improve your website’s visibility, make sure you write clean and readable URLs, and configure meta titles, descriptions, and keywords for every page. Also, use canonical tags to avoid duplicate content issues, optimize robots.txt to block unnecessary pages, and add alt text to all images. Implementing structured data for rich snippets can also make your store stand out in search results.

How can I optimize Magento’s page load speed for SEO?

Page loading speed depends upon a number of factors, and you only have three seconds to retain a visitor. For optimizing the speed, use Magento’s built-in caching system to reduce server response times. Also, optimize images by compressing them and use a CDN to deliver content faster globally. Additionally, upgrading to a high-performance hosting provider and enabling lazy loading for images can significantly improve loading times.