Shopify SEO “Expert” here – I mean, I wouldn’t necessarily call myself an expert, but some in the industry might. I’ve been writing optimized content, professionally, for a highly rated eCommerce agency for nearly four years, and writing professionally for longer than that. So, call me an expert if you will, I know a thing or two about how it all works.
All of my agency’s clients are in eCommerce, in some form or other. Many of them are on Shopify. These clients often don’t fully understand what role content plays in SEO, even though they know somehow or other that it’s important. Given the fact that some agencies sell SEO services that consist of link building and solving technical errors, but don’t involve content, some confusion is warranted.
That being as it is, I can confidently say that no successful SEO services can be delivered in the absence of content. Even if the level and depth of content don’t go further than keyword research, there’s no way to optimize so many page-level ranking signals without strings of keywords – which, taking the definition of content loosely, are still content.
So – to back up a little, content is considered a ranking signal, which means that search engines like Google directly evaluate content when “deciding” whether or not to assign domain authority to a website – and whether or not it will show up in the search results.
Content appears in a variety of different forms, such as on-page SEO copy, blog posts, press releases, and all sorts of other things. Content itself is also evaluated on a variety of factors, including length, keyword density, structure and formatting, age, depth, and other factors.
Here’s how it basically works, though – this isn’t rocket science. First, you perform keyword research. I’m not going to dive into that in-depth in this short post. Just know that content performs best when it has some sort of keyword strategy.
Then, you write and post content – wherever you post it, Google will crawl the page if it can be accessed. Google’s crawlers will pick up uses of keywords and evaluate content where it appears to see if it appears to offer answers to online users’ search queries.
If the content appears to answer some sort of question associated with a search query, Google will index that page for certain keywords and search terms so that it shows up in the SERPs (search engine results pages).
The higher the website appears in the search results, the more likely it is to generate higher impressions for those associated search terms – meaning that people will see it listed there. People will click on the link and consume the content on the page.
Theoretically, the better the page is, or the more faithfully it meets the search intent behind the client query, the longer the user will stay on the page. Though they may not directly be considered ranking factors, Google also uses user behavior when determining whether to keep pushing a page to the top of the SERPs or to drop it. Positive user behavior metrics, such as high session duration and low bounce or exit rates bode well for a page, and all else considered, Google will continue to push it higher up the SERPs.
There are other ranking factors involved here, and this is a very oversimplified view, but that’s basically how it works for the purpose of illustrating the point that content is vital to digital marketing in general and all SEO strategies in particular. Simply put, an SEO company cannot offer effective eCommerce SEO services in the absence of content.
As a result, Shopify SEO experts often hire experienced writers – like me – to develop useful content for their clients, in order to generate high organic traffic and sales. It all comes as part of the package of fully optimizing your Shopify store (or a different platform if you’re not on Shopify).
Interestingly, this is a piece of content about the importance of content in SEO. I hope I simplified that in terms that made sense to you if you’re not familiar with digital marketing or SEO, specifically, but sometimes it can be hard to separate the jargon from the basic, simple facts.
If I didn’t answer your question and you still have questions about how marketing agencies use content to deliver their SEO initiatives, contact Genius eCommerce at GeniusEcommerce.com .They’ll set the record straight.
