SEO audit tips from Magento 2 experts. Things to consider to make your store perform better

We can all agree that customization is the second name of Magento. The platform's flexibility allows doing all sorts of amazing things with it, including advanced SEO optimization.

SEO drives organic traffic to the store, affects site visibility and ranking, and serves as the bottom line for the store profitability. Thus, it is important to make your store shine in the Google search results and make it visible and clear for both the users and the search bots.

That's where SEO audit steps in. Below we will have a look at the most common SEO problems that are often overlooked by the store owners and ways to fix them, preferably with the help of a knowledgeable specialist.

Checking the visibility: can Google actually see you?

The first and foremost question is: can Google see your site?

One way or another, Google will eventually find your store. Googlebot constantly crawls the web and discovers new websites - but it will be better to put some effort into making your store more visible.

To do so, create an XML sitemap to help Google navigate your store and submit the site to Google Webmasters Tool. This service helps in site optimization and lets you check the indexing status.

After the site is indexed and visible, the next question is: can Google crawl you?

If the site has too many tech issues, the bot will soon leave it. To check the status of your site, use Google Crawl Error Report.

The last thing to do is checking whether Google index and rank your site. In Google Index Report, check what pages from your site are indexed. As for the ranking, Google will rank your site in accordance with on-page and off-page factors, like keyword use, lack of duplicate content, filled-in tags, etc.

After you are all set up with the store visibility, you can move on to checking your site's optimization. Below are the biggest SEO pain points for the majority of the store owners.

Cross-category URLs

Some of the site's pages may have identical content and this leads to problem #1 in SEO - the duplicate content issue.

Duplicate content confuses crawlers and prevents them from knowing which page is the main one. As a result, neither gets a high ranking.

To solve the issue, you can apply 301 redirect to the duplicate URLs. The 301 redirect will lead the users to the main page and, at the same time, keep the duplicate pages visible without harming the overall ranking.

As well, you can use nofollow, noindex tags to either prevent the page from passing the link equity or from indexing.

Robots.txt

The robots.txt file tells Google what pages need indexing and what pages should be ignored - and this makes robots.txt an incredibly powerful SEO tool.

Internal linking

Google may have a hard time finding specific pages. Help the crawler see them by correctly placing the internal links across the website.

Magento 2 experts create a solid website structure. It will help you better place the links and ease the bot's navigation. A perfect website is like a pyramid: with homepage on top, it then gradually leads to all the other pages.

URLs

URL optimization is a big deal. URLs help a search engine understand what the page is about, so your task is to make them clear and informative.

Essentials of URL optimization:

• Use hyphens - Google does not read underscores;
• Keep it simple and readable;
• Place relevant keywords;
• Use canonical rel tag for indicating the canonical URL;
• Use redirects and robots.txt to avoid duplicate content.

Title tags and meta descriptions

The content on your website is important not only for the shoppers but for search engines as well. Title tags and meta descriptions are especially important in letting the crawler know what the page is about.

A title tag is basically a page title that can be seen in the search results. A meta description is a short snippet under the title tag that lets both users and crawlers know about the content of the page.

When creating both title tags and meta descriptions, make sure they are unique and contain relevant keywords.

Keyword and Content

We've mentioned keywords a bit in the upper section but this topic deserves more attention.

Keywords are the words or phrases that people use to search for the information online. Hence, if your website content contains keywords with high search volume, you increase the visibility of your site greatly.

Aspects to consider when choosing keywords:

• Search volume: in other words, the popularity of the keywords.
• Intent: what exactly do your shoppers want?
• Relevancy: do not opt for keywords with high search volume that have nothing to do with your business.

As for the website content, the most important rule is: keep it unique.

A basic example is the manufacturer's description, which comes with the products by default. Imagine how many of your competitors can also use the same description for the same product. And what if your competition is X times bigger than you? The answer is: Google will rank them higher and will ignore your store.

It's vital to write unique product descriptions and basically all the content that is present on your site.

Site load speed

The speed of the site loading is an important factor that affects site ranking. Magento 2 experts provide several reasons why your store may underperform:

• Non-optimized images;
• Complex code;
• No caching;
• Useless extensions and plugins.

Mobile-friendly

Last year, Google announced mobile-first indexing and this officially highlights the importance of mobile in today's digital world.

Mobile-first indexing means that Google bots will first index the mobile version of the store and will then move to the desktop one. So it's vital that your store is optimized equally well for both the desktop and mobile.

• The main features of a mobile-optimized store are:
• Content quality: displayed well on the mobile screen;
• Light-weight: to provide quick loading;
• Intuitive navigation: to make the user's journey fast and hassle-free.

Final word

If you have any doubts whether your store performs to its full extent, address professional Magento 2 experts and demand an SEO audit. Magento is an amazingly customizable and flexible platform and would be a shame to lose sales and traffic only because you've missed a few points about SEO optimization of your store.

Mary is a community manager at Onilab - a Magento development team of true professionals.