20 Magento SEO Tips That Will Put Your Site On Top of Google [Updated for 2022]
Right out of the box, Magento is already one of the most SEO-friendly e-commerce platforms.
Add this to the many reasons we love Magento (now known as Adobe Commerce).
However, there is a lot you can do to improve your Magento site's ability to rank well with Google and attract more visitors than the competition.
Our eCommerce SEO experts have been working with Magento 2 since it was launched back in 2015. So, I asked my team to use this experience and come up with a list of the best Magento 2 SEO tips – the ones they've seen make it big. The difference for our customers.
20 Best SEO Tips for Magento Sites
One of the main things I found when I put this list together were SEO tips that you can implement right away.
Yes, content is still king.
Of course, you should build a strong backlink profile.
Site speed is always important.
However, for this list, I focused on 8 SEO tips for Magento that won't take months – or even years – to implement.
I hope you take a second to read this entire post and then take a little more time to implement these tips, so your Magento 2 site will start seeing a lot of traffic in the very near future.
1. Set your Magento site's preferred domain (and apply it)
Your site probably already has enough competition as it is.
So, don't let the WWW and non-WWW versions of your Magento site compete against each other for rankings or create frustrating canonical issues.
Why does this happen?
From an SEO perspective, Google sees the WWW and non-WWW versions of your Magento site as two separate entities. This means, try as you might, you can easily run into duplicate content issues. Of course, you are actually competing with your own site for rankings as well.
not great
Fortunately, this is a very easy problem to fix or just avoid altogether.
Just go to the "secure" and "unsecured" base URLs located in the core_config_data table in phpMyAdmin) and set this preference in Magento.
Then, implement it using two methods of follow-up:
• Correctly implement a 301 redirect from the incorrect version with a mod_rewrite in your .htaccess file.
• Select your preferred URL in Google Webmaster Tools
that's it!
Congratulations, you've just knocked one of your competitors out of the game (if only the others were so easy).
2. Use tiered XML sitemaps
Hopefully, you already have a sitemap for your Magento site. If not, follow this post to create a sitemap ASAP and upload it to Google.
Even if you already have an XML sitemap, if your e-commerce websites are large, I recommend that you create a "sitemap of sitemaps" that breaks the categories into more bite-sized sections, the kind that Google Can crawl easily.
No one likes to be ignored, but it often happens to pages that are listed at the bottom of long, awkward sitemaps – the kind that go on forever.
To avoid this, divide your site into naturally flowing sections – perhaps by category – and create a sitemap for each major section.
Then, list the URLs of the other sitemaps in the primary sitemap, such as:
In your admin panel, go to Catalog -> Google Sitemap -> Add Sitemap and add your primary sitemap.
Next, add that sitemap to your robots.txt file.
If you want to be sure Google sees it, you can even add your sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools, showing the giant search engine where to look.
It has everything in it. No matter how big your Magento site may be, this SEO tip will make it more inviting to Google the next time its crawlers pay a visit.
3. Enable server URL rewrites and disable store code in URLS
As I said earlier, I chose these SEO tips for Magento because they are easy to implement right away, so you start seeing results in no time.
Nevertheless, this next one is still really simple.
Like, really simple.
But first, let me quickly tell you why this is so important.
Your Magento website URLs play a huge role in what Google thinks about each individual page. Among other things, Google looks at keywords, dynamic character strings, and other factors to help understand what the page is about.
To make it easy on Google, you want to keep your URL as short and to-the-point as possible.
While I recommend you audit all your URLs at some point to trim any unnecessary characters - or beef them up accordingly - this is definitely a long-term process. is
However, you can easily clip out any "index.php" text that is currently adding unnecessary length to your URL without investing a lot of time in the process.
All you have to do is go to System -> Configuration -> Web -> Search Engine Optimization, and, under "Use web server rewrites", select "Yes".
To remove index.php from your URLs and ensure they are easy to read.
4. Disable the category name from your URL path
Listen, I love Magento.
But if I'm honest, Magento doesn't do a great job when it comes to adding category names to all your URLs.
This is a problem because the practice of automatically concatenating those category names can lead to some very messy URLs. Load times can also increase, (never good), and, again, it's easy to run into those pesky duplicate content issues.
To prevent this from happening, simply go to System-> Configuration -> Catalog -> Search Engine Optimization and change "Use category path for product URL" to "No".
Rebuild does a great job of controlling the URLs for their product pages:
The category URL is: http://www.rejuvenation.com/catalog/categories/lighting/table
But notice how they remove "lighting" and "table" from the original product URL above.
This is a very clean, simple URL that is very easy to achieve with Magento 2.
5. Move JavaScript and CSS to external files (not templates!).
Long, cluttered templates don't do your Magento SEO any good – not to mention that reloading these elements over and over again can really hurt your load times.
My advice is to move these to external files, so visitors can cache them on their first page load. That way, search engines don't have to download them again and again.
More importantly, you should combine elements like JavaScript and CSS into centralized external files instead of dozens of external files.
Every additional file that needs to be downloaded requires another connection to the server, so it's wise to add and reduce the number of files floating around. One of the main areas to focus on is stylesheets as Magento doesn't work well with them by default.
Combine all your stylesheets into just one new one (except print.css) to keep things humming along fast!
6. Optimize all your images
In the rush to upload images and get product pages live, you may overlook one of the easiest ways to put relevant keywords on your Magento site: adding ALT attributes to your images.
Optimizing your product images with text will ensure that visually impaired people understand everything on the page, but it's also an easy way to put additional keywords on your product pages.
Here are the basics:
• Give all your images keyword-rich names like antique-lamp.jpg instead of generic filenames like jpg. Search engines use these files when determining image rankings.
• Use an informative, concise and keyword-rich alt description to help search engines understand the content of your images. Just be careful about keyword stuffing. Remember that the reason Google requires image features is to help the visually impaired - not to improve your rankings. Describe the product in detail to someone who needs that information to make a purchase. If you can do this while including keywords, great.
• Give the image a descriptive and meaningful title. Typically, this will just be the product name, but if you think other descriptors would help the visually impaired - and Google - go ahead and add them.
Yes, it's a bit of added effort, but as anyone whose product pages have ever hit the front page can attest, it's well worth the modest investment.
7. Get rid of the empty robot meta
Magento has a strange tendency to display non-set meta robots tags below:
Unfortunately, this can cause problems for search engines.
To prevent it from harming your Magento site's SEO, remove this code completely.
There is no shortage of modules and plugins that make this easy to do, even if you have no coding experience, so check the marketplace for options that make this important SEO tip a simple step.
8. Optimize your content with the right keywords
When it comes to e-commerce, the meat and potatoes of SEO are product titles and descriptions.
Provided that you create them with keywords in mind, that is.
But if the product titles and descriptions on your Magento site are not created with SEO in mind, you are losing traffic and conversions. It is as simple as that.
So, while I certainly hope you use all the Magento SEO tips I've just covered, please never forget these basics.
Your product titles and descriptions are easy to access. Both are on the actual product pages themselves.
To optimize your product titles:
• Make sure all your product titles are unique but also consider the keywords people use when searching for them. You have 50-60 characters for a title tag, so if there's room, throw in some sales copy too (eg “high-quality”, “affordable”, “durable”, “stylish”, etc.) – which Also click on your competitors.
• Whenever possible, place the keyword as close to the beginning of your product description as possible. Google crawls left-to-right and will give it more weight.
• Leave out product numbers or SKUs unless you know your audience will actually search for them in Google. Otherwise, you can place them at the top of your product description where visitors can find them immediately.
To make your Magento site's product description SEO-friendly:
• Just like your titles, create product descriptions that are 100% unique. If you have similar products (like two turtlenecks: one black, one white), you can always use canonical tags to tell Google that you're aware of duplicate content, to avoid any SEO problems you encounter. don't have to
• Focus on long-tail keywords whenever possible. This is where competition is usually lowest, but intent to buy is highest.
• Use your main keyword in H1 and then wherever it makes sense in the product description.
Even if you have thousands of products, you can start implementing this SEO advice immediately by working through 5-10 a day. The ROI from these simple changes will really add up over time.
9. Update your Magento site to the latest version
This can be the easiest way to improve your Magento store's SEO and enjoy many other benefits in the process.
It is always a good idea to update your store to the latest version of Magento. Among other things, doing so will give your site a mix of major security improvements. These updates automatically fix any issues related to the previous version of Magento.
Technically, you can manually update your Magento store to a new version.
However, this is a time consuming process even for those who know what they are doing. If you have never updated Magento before, the process can be time-consuming and risky. One mistake can cause serious problems for your Magento site.
Hiring an experienced Magento developer is highly recommended to avoid any major issues with your site.
Not updating your Magento site to the latest version can mean losing user-friendly features or losing features that benefit your customers' experience.
But it will also mean that your Magento store's SEO potential remains limited compared to competitors who also use and have upgraded the platform.
Again, this is best left to a professional, but we have a post detailing the process and cost of upgrading a Magento site if you're curious about what's involved.
10. Make it easy for search engines to index your Magento site
Even if you're ticking every box to optimize your Magento site, all that work will be for naught if Google and other search engines can't index it.
Unless this happens, your site won't really show up in searches - rank low enough to drive very little traffic.
On the other hand, by making it easier for Google and other search engines to index your website, you are more likely to appear good and high in the SERPs.
How to find out if your Magento site is being indexed
You can check if your site is being indexed by Google in a few different ways.
The first way is to go to Google and actively search for your website.
For me, that means going to Google and typing in site:IWDAgency.com
And, sure enough, there's proof that our site is getting indexed:
I can also see how many pages (718) - and which ones - can appear in Google's search results.
Another way is to go into the Google Search Console and select "Coverage" under the "Index" heading:
The report will also show you if Google is indexing pages that are not in your sitemap. If these pages are important to your Magento store, it's best to add them to your sitemap and resubmit it to Google Search Console.
If you see any pages that are in your sitemap but still aren't showing up when you do the "Site Search" method above, enter the URL at the top of the Google Search Console for feedback directly from Google about what's wrong. Add to the investigation. tool :
11. Make sure your Magento store is fast
Website speed has always been important.
Google has been pushing website owners to prioritize speed for years now, but they recently stepped up the pressure by introducing their Web Core Vitals report - which measures site speed.
Of course, it's not just Google that will notice if your Magento site is slow. Customers will too.
After all, site speed is directly related to customer satisfaction. If a customer has to wait more than three seconds, most clicks will go away.
If Google users don't like something, Google won't like it. Hence, why site speed is so important to your Magento store's SEO.
Google favors websites with great loading times, that it often ranks the fastest pages in their search results based on that metric.
Choosing an SEO-friendly Magento theme is a good first step, but there are other things you can do to make sure your store keeps Google happy.
Enable caching for your Magento store
Another way to improve your Magento site speed is to enable caching.
See, whenever someone first visits a page, your site's server loads everything it should display. Magento then creates a copy of this page and automatically caches the content being displayed.
That way, when the visitor returns, the cache of that page is available for display. The server does not need to recreate it.
So, make sure that your Magento site's caching is enabled. Sometimes, developers turn it off while working and forget to turn it back on once done.
Minimize scripts
Another great way to speed up your Magento site – and improve your rankings in the process – is to merge and minify its CSS and JS files.
Simply put, doing this will condense the total number of individual CSS files that your store has to handle into fewer files. The result? A store that loads very quickly.
However, this is another time when it might be best to hire a Magento developer for the job. It's not the most challenging of jobs, but non-developers will probably struggle.
Check your hosting
If you've tried both of the strategies above and you're still having problems with your site's speed, it could be your hosting that's the issue.
In that case, you'll want to shop around for a hosting provider that specializes in Magento sites.
Given the popularity of the platform, there are many great options in the market. Many of them come with inbuilt configurations to help automatically optimize your Magento site for speed.
Do a regular speed audit
As much as it would be nice to think that optimizing site speed is a one-time task, unfortunately, it is an ongoing process.
So, make it a habit to check your store's speed once a month. There can be all kinds of reasons why your site is slow from one month to the next.
For example, there may be plug-ins that are causing issues or other issues that are slowing down your site.
You can hire a developer to give your site a monthly health check or simply use a website audit tool that will notify you when your site load times increase.
You can also run your site through Google's PageSpeed Insights tool to see how fast it loads and how that affects your visitors.
12. Treat your Magento store's title tags as a priority
The term metadata is used to include the meta title, meta description, and any meta keywords.
For a long time, the conventional wisdom was that all three of these components were necessary for your website to rank.
However, things have changed in recent years.
Meta keywords will not help your site
For one thing, meta keywords no longer matter as a ranking factor. So, even though Magento gives you a place to enter them, they won't have any impact on Google.
Meta descriptions will help your site a bit
What about the meta description?
Meta description types matter but only if Google shows them to its users.
See, Google rewrites meta descriptions more than 70% of the time.
So, while it's a good idea to include a meta description for each page on your Magento site – and even include keywords (which Google will bold if relevant) – these short descriptions directly link to your Won't help pages rank better.
Title tags definitely matter
Title tags are what really matter.
You generally want to include your main keyword in them and use the rest of your 60 or so characters to entice searchers to click.
Interestingly, Google started rewriting title tags last year, too – by more than 60%, not less.
But given how important these tags are, I encourage you to still put some thought into them.
13. Show flattering customer reviews of your Magento store
Customer reviews are a great way to increase conversion rates on your Magento site. According to a survey conducted by IDS Fulfillment, using customer reviews on your site can increase conversions by 58% and increase revenue per visit by 62%.
That's great, of course, but how do customer reviews relate to your store's SEO?
Well, if you add "review" structured data to your site, Google can show what others think about the products of your Magento store. Flattering reviews naturally increase the click-through rate, which - as a result - will also improve the ranking of your Magento store.
14. Do not remove product pages when they are out of stock
If you follow all of the above SEO advice, you will eventually run into a problem - albeit a good one.
You will get so much traffic that you will start selling products.
Obviously, you'll go ahead and order more.
But what do you do with the product page for that item in the meantime?
Whatever you do, do not delete the page or take it down.
Many business owners do this thinking they can simply repurpose the page when their products are restocked without harm.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Even if you've been selling that item for years, Google will treat a new product page as just that - new. It will need to climb the search engine ladder again.
Instead, update the product page to say the item is temporarily out of stock. Thus, the page maintains its presence on Google. You can also continue to use the SEO tips in this article to keep improving its rankings. When you replenish your supplies, the page will be ready to replace customers.
For even better results, add an email form to the page, so users can sign up to receive a notification when the item becomes available again.
15. Use canonical tags to avoid duplicate pages
If you have a large e-commerce store, it is almost inevitable that you will run into issues with duplicate content.
Sometimes, it is inevitable.
For example, if you offer a guarantee, you must include this information on all product pages to which this policy applies. However, there's no need to come up with hundreds - or thousands - of ways to rewrite this guarantee.
However, sometimes duplicate content can confuse Google, making it difficult for the search engine to know which page to show when someone searches for a term that applies to more than one. In short, you end up with pages that are competing against each other.
This problem is often called keyword cannibalization.
In any case, the goal should be to make each of your pages as unique as you really can.
For products where it makes sense to have the most content, consider using canonical tags to tell Google which of these pages it should prioritize in its results. Magento makes this fairly painless. Go to Stores > Configuration > Catalog.
Scroll down to the Search Engine Optimization section and select “Yes” where it asks you to “Use Canonical Link Meta Tag for Categories” and one below that, “Use Canonical Link Meta Tag for Products”.
16. Your Magento store should be mobile-friendly
Back in 2016, mobile web viewing surpassed desktop viewing as users accessed the Internet.
This is why your Magento site must be mobile-friendly.
Another big one is that Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites in its rankings.
In other words, if you don't have a mobile-friendly website, you'll be at a huge disadvantage compared to all your competitors who prioritize mobile users.
This is another reason to use a responsive theme for your Magento site. This means that it is compatible with any device and automatically changes to fit the size of the screen it is being viewed on. Using the Magento Page Builder can help you check if your theme is responsive.
Another great option is a Progressive Web App (PWA), which will help your Magento store look and behave like an app.
Nothing is as mobile-friendly as an app.
• Help load content faster even on slow bandwidth
• Improve performance on mobile
• Provide a better experience for customers
And building a Magento Web Development Agency is faster and more cost-effective for your Company than building an actual app.
17. Implement lots and lots of internal links
Perhaps one of the best - but most overlooked - strategies to improve a site's SEO is interlinking.
It's not just that you have complete control over the links on your own site. This is so you can instantly change them or their anchor text whenever you want.
Lots of interlinks make it easy for your shoppers to get from one part of your Magento store to another, which is great for improving your UX. These links can also help reduce your bounce rate, which is also good for better rankings.
But strong interlinking makes your site easier for Google to find as well.
Popular SEO platforms like Ahrefs and Semrush make it really easy to find out which pages on your Magento site aren't getting the interlinking they need to win on Google. As a rule, each page should have at least two links pointing to it. You want to avoid pages with no interlinks – also known as “orphan pages” – at all costs.
Also, make sure your interlinking makes sense. Don't link from one page to the next just to meet the above quota. Take your time to make sure the linked pages are related to each other.
Finally, don't settle for "click here" or other non-descriptive phrases for your links. Use natural language, but try to include keywords whenever possible. Google will pick these up, which can help improve your rankings for those terms.
18. Set up schema markup on your Magento site
Schema markup is a type of microdata that tells search engines how to organize information on your site. By using schema markup on your Magento site, it's easy for additional information – such as images, pricing and availability – to show up on search engine results pages.
In turn, schema markup can improve clickthrough rate, which – as we've already covered – is great for SEO.
There are all kinds of user-friendly tools that make adding schema markup a breeze, so this is one SEO tip that you definitely don't need a developer for, even though it's pretty powerful.
19. Make full use of your site's blog (you have one, right?).
Please let me know if your Magento site has a blog.
Although Magento is primarily known for its e-commerce capabilities, no site should be without a blog these days.
And there are many blog extensions for Magento that make it easy to add one to your site.
There are also many reasons to have a blog, but you can probably guess that I'm going to highlight in my final tip, you know, Magento SEO.
The more blogs you have on the same topic, the more you tick Google's boxes for E-A-T, which stands for "expertise, authority and credibility."
E-A-T is easily one of the most important ranking factors, so the more you can do to improve your Magento site's profile in this regard, the better.
Let's see how it can actually work.
Say your Magento store sells t-shirts. You might have a blog post that looks at the latest t-shirt trends, another on how to care for them, and another on ways to style or dress your t-shirt selection. Chances are there is an endless list of topics you can cover.
By enhancing your online presence with the addition of blog posts, you stand a much better chance of being seen by buyers.
And as you continue to publish blog posts, make sure you combine them with plenty of keyword-rich anchor text.
20. Build Backlinks (The Right Way)
Backlinks have been a well-known ranking factor for years now, but most business owners don't know how to get them.
While using them to naturally put together a blog is definitely helpful, this approach takes a lot of time. Most blogs don't generate much in the way of backlinks unless they are at the very top of Google.
Depending on how competitive your market is, it may take years for you to have a good blog ranking to generate these types of links naturally.
Of course, following these SEO tips should definitely help with that.
However, if you prefer to see backlinks ASAP, you have two options.
And, ideally, I recommend you pursue both.
Use professional backlink builders
The first is to hire a company that will go out and get those backlinks for you. Usually, they own or are affiliated with other sites that can create the links you need at your request.
This will get you the fastest return, but you need to do your research before paying someone to build backlinks like this. Ask for case studies, especially any that highlight success in your industry.
And don't procrastinate here. Good backlinks can be expensive, but cheap backlinks will have no effect.
Work with a PR team
Digital PR has become increasingly popular in recent years as a means of building powerful backlinks.
In many ways, this approach is no different than traditional PR. It's just that the primary goal isn't positive buzz or brand recognition. While these are great, the priority is getting backlinks from powerful websites that Google loves.
The results can be amazing for your Magento store's SEO, but this strategy will take time. That's why I recommend using professional backlink builders at the same time - if possible. This way, your Magento site gets some great backlinks while you wait for your PR investment to pay off.
Effective SEO for your Magento store is an ongoing process
While the SEO tips above will produce dramatic results for your Magento site's search engine rankings, it's important to remember that effective search engine optimization is an ongoing process.
But if you regularly invest time in your website by doing things like publishing blog posts, testing your site's speed, and adding interlinks when appropriate, you'll see your Magento store traffic grow steadily. is going
