The SEO checklist for your online shop

You want to increase the visibility of your online shop in search engines with online marketing? Then you will not get around SEO (search engine optimization). We explain what SEO means and what onpage/onsite and offsite optimization stand for in this context.

1. What is SEO?

SEO is a sub-discipline of online marketing. If executed correctly, SEO measures should lead to a higher organic ranking in Google search, i.e. the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). Those measures take place both on the actual website and off it. This is where onpage/onsite & off-page optimization come into play.

2. Onpage & onsite optimization

The term Onpage Optimization includes all SEO measures on your website and represents the basis for better search engine readability. This includes technical, structural and content elements, such as:

SEO friendly URLs
Website architecture
Usability
high-quality content
internal linking
Use of images and videos

Onpage optimization therefore refers to the optimization of individual URLs on your website. Onsite optimizations, on the other hand, represent optimization measures that influence the entire website. Examples of onsite optimization would be changes to the navigation or the footer.

2.1 Onpage optimization measures

Google Snippets

A Google snippet consists of the title tag, the meta description and the URL of the page and means the representation of your website in the SERP. For this reason, it is important to make the Google snippet as relevant and appealing to users as possible.

Onpage Checklist Title Tag

The main keyword must be included.
The main keyword should already be at the beginning of the title tag (higher relevance for search engine).
Title tag length: Maximum between 50 and 60 characters long.
Text length measurement tool: seobility

Onpage checklist meta description

The main keyword must be included.
The description is a sneak peek for the content and not the content itself.
Length meta description: Maximum between 150 and 160 characters long.
The meta description must be exciting and informative.
Text length measurement tool: seobility

Open Graph Tags

If you publish some of your content on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, the presentation of your content is of course also very important there. An appealing image and a short but meaningful title can significantly increase the click rate on your shared content.

For this reason, there are Open Graph tags. An Open Graph Tag (og tag) usually includes a title, a description and also a preview image that you can adapt to your respective target group. The goal is that you finally store different elements in your source code (or SEO settings of your store). These elements will be automatically used for previews of title, image and description in the next step. By the way, the selected elements are also used for the display in WhatsApp and other messenger apps to show information about shared links.

What are the Open Graph tags?

og:description
og:image
og:type
og:title
og:url

Tool for Open Graph optimization

Headings

To identify headings, abbreviations such as H1-H6 are used. For example, an H1 would be the title of your blog post, your "main headline". Your main keyword plays an important role here as well. It should already appear in your main headline and preferably in your H2.

Onpage checklist headlines

You need an H1 with the main keyword.
The main keyword and other keywords should also be included in the subheadings.
The title will be visible in the SERP and should therefore trigger curiosity in users (you can take a cue from your competitors here).

It's important to provide relevant content for your users. Again, looking at your competition will give you insight into what content is already working and what people are searching for. Are graphics, icons, videos or images used?

Onpage checklist images

high resolution
compressed
JPEG or PNG
personalized/branded images instead of stock photos
Keywords in the file name

Onpage Checklist Content

short heels
appealing headlines
Storytelling
Design
Call-to-action
Spelling/Grammar
Readability
Insert videos and images
Links
Update content

Keywords

You may have read this term above and wondered why we refer to keywords so often. Keywords are indispensable for SEO, but it depends on the correct placement of the keywords and their relevance. Here you should again be guided by your competition. You can find a list of free keyword research tools in this article.

Did you know? Shopstory automatically checks keyword overlaps, differences and ranking of your competitors with one click. Our intelligent eCommerce wizard also suggests new ideas for campaigns and blogposts that are checked for profitability.

Here you should place your main keyword

Title tag
Meta description
H1
(at least) one H2
URL
Filename of your images
Captions (if available)
within the first 100 words
distributed in the text with other keywords

All onpage measures at a glance

Google Snippets
Open Graph Tags
Headings
Contents
Keywords

2.2 Onsite optimization measures

Logical URL structure

The URL structure is important in relation to search engines in order to improve the "crawlability", i.e. the accessibility of your website. Here, too, the proverb "brevity is the spice of life" comes into play. If your URL contains too many words, they will be rated less important by the search engine. Therefore, keep your URLs short and crisp to be attractive for linking.

Onsite checklist URLs

briefly
appealing
informative
structured
incl. main keyword

Mobile Optimization

Since we surf more and more on smartphones or tablets, you should not disregard a mobile optimization of your online shop or website. A responsive design, which adapts to the respective device, helps you to present your content in an appealing way.

Shorten loading time

The loading time of your website or online shop is also a very important ranking factor for Google. If the loading time is more than 3 or 4 seconds, this has an impact on your conversion rate. Users tend to leave your website if the loading time is longer.

One tool for measuring your loading time is Google PageSpeed Insights. It also shows you what is affecting the speed of your page.

All onsite measures at a glance

Logical URL structure
Mobile Optimization
Shorten loading time

3. What is off-page optimization?

In contrast to onpage/onsite optimization, off-page optimization deals with optimization outside of a company's own website or online shop. Important here is the building of links. Here, links are generated to your website in order to make the relevance of your content visible to the search engines. The goal is to create trust in your site and make it seem relevant to Google in order to drive your ranking further up.

General Off-page Checklist Backlinks

Check the trustworthiness of the site (links on banned sites can negatively affect your visibility).
Check popularity and relevance of the linking page.
Do not optimize link texts too much (Google filter notices that).
Avoid backlink purchase/rent

Free Backlink Checker Tools

3.1 Measures for Off-page Optimization

Guest article

With guest articles you can not only publish your relevant content on popular and well-known portals, but additionally link to your site. For this reason, guest articles are a popular and effective off-page method.

Off-page checklist for guest post

Provide relevant, exciting, and high-quality content.
Mention your post on social media and link to your "host".
Offer others the opportunity to publish a guest post on your site as well.

Press relations

Digital press work also leads to backlinks. Turn here to newspapers or large magazines.

Off-page checklist for press relations

Offer relevant, exciting and high-quality content (news value).
Include links from subpages of your website in the press release (but not necessarily your home page).
Pay attention to the quality of your press portals and not to quantity.

Linkable-Assets

Linkable assets are, for example, checklists, studies or graphics that you make available to others. Thus, a linkable asset should invite you to link to it in order to increase your website traffic and, in the best case, to increase your awareness.

Broken Link Building

If you notice that a link on another page leads nowhere, this is called a broken link. You can "fill" these links with your relevant content by contacting the site operator and suggesting an exchange of the broken link with one of your website. You can find such broken links in online forums or blogs, for example.

Free Broken Link Finder

All off-page measures at a glance

Guest contributions
Press relations
Broken Link Building
Linkable-Assets

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Sources (last accessed 04/21/2021):

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The SEO Checklist for Your Online Shop