Search Engine Listing Preview – Very Important Settings for Your Products

I previously posted a tip about your store Title and Meta Description. In that article, I mentioned that the Title and Meta Description was one of the most important things you need to do for your store.

The SECOND most important thing you need to do to improve your search ranking, is to have an awesome SEARCH ENGINE LISTING PREVIEW for each of your product listing pages.

What you type in the Search Engine Listing Preview area, is what shows up on Google when someone finds your product listing. It is important that a user know what that product is about, and that text must compel them to click on your product listing.

To enter your Search Engine Listing Preview:

1. From your Shopify dashboard, click Products
2. Click on any product you want to edit
3. Scroll to the bottom of the product listing page, and look for the Search Engine Product Listing area
4. Click the blue Edit Website SEO link
   
5. Check the Page Title to make sure it defines what your product is (see additional tips below)
6. Check the Meta Description to be sure that text further defines your product, and encourages a user to click on the product link in Google search (see additional tips below)
7. The URL and Handle area should already have picked up your product title from your listing, so you probably won’t have to change this area
8. Click Save and you will see exactly what someone will see when they do a search for your product on Google or other search engines
   

NOTES:

• The Meta Description is automatically filled in for you, using the first 160 characters from your product description. If you are satisfied with what you see, there is no need to change the Meta Description. SO… to save you time, my TIP is, write your opening product description (the first 160 characters) as if you were writing your Meta Description. That way, you won’t have to modify your Meta Description at all, and it will save you time!
  UPDATE 1/1/18:  Shopify has modified the Meta Description field, it now can accommodate up to 320 characters (no longer limited to 160 characters).
• The Page Title is also automatically filled in for you, using the first 70 characters from your product title that you write at the top of the product listing page. Again – write that title in a way that you want your listing to show up in search engines, and you won’t have to modify the Page Title SEO.
• I didn’t mention the IMAGE ALT tags above in this tip, but they too are critical to your product SEO. If you are not using an app to have these IMAGE ALT tags added automatically for you, you will want to make sure to add them while you are on the product listing page.
• Bonus TIP – make sure you apply this same information to your Pages and Collection Pages, as well!

• Make your PAGE TITLE descriptive of what your product is. Make sure the main keyword for your product is in this title area. You have up to 70 characters for the Page Title.
• Your META DESCRIPTION _must_ tell someone what that product is and why they should click on it (from an internet search result). You have up to 160 320 characters to do this – make them count!
• Your PAGE TITLE and your META DESCRIPTION should include important keywords that someone would use when searching for your product. These keywords should be written into one or two sentences in a natural way that a user would understand. The words you type here should compel someone to want to click to see what your product is all about.