Last time, we showed you how to start an online store with OpenCart. In this article, I’m going to show you how to do SEO and improve ranking for your OpenCart online store. Below are eleven SEO factors that you should apply for your store right away.
Head on!
#1: Optimize every page in your OpenCart store
OpenCart is designed in a way that all of its pages can be indexed and identified in search engines. So by providing the identification information through Meta Title, Meta Description and Meta keywords, you are making it easier for search engines to get your store data.
Just login to your OpenCart dashboard and follow these steps to get it done:
- Optimizing for your Home page: Go to System > Settings > Edit > tab Store, fill out in theTitle and Meta Tag Description box, then click Save.
- Optimizing for your each Catalog: Go to Catalog > Categories > Choose category to edit or insert new > fill out in the Category Name, Meta Tag Description and Meta Tag Keywords box, then click Save.
- Optimizing for your each product: Go to Catalog > Products > Choose product to edit or insert new > fill out in the Product Name, Meta Tag Description and Meta Tag Keywordsbox, then click Save.
Notes: To get better ranking on search engines, remember the rule of thumb is only 70 characters for Title tags and 150-160 characters for Meta Descriptions. And it’s better if you insert your product keywords to them. Do keyword research carefully for your store usingGoogle Keyword Tool!
#2: Optimize URL’s Structure
The OpenCart default URL’s such as http://YourOpencartStore.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=40 will destroy your effort to get high ranking on Google and other search engines. So you need to make your OpenCart website has shorter, friendly and meaningful URL’s.
Follow these steps to do it now:
- Login to your OpenCart dashboard > Go to System > Settings > Edit > tab Server > Set the SEO URL’s radio to “Yes” and save your settings.
- Go to your hosting control panel and rename the file .htaccess.txt to .htaccess
- Finally, you need to enter SEO keywords for every page, information, product and category you want to have URL rewrite (You can find the field for the SEO Keywords under the Data tab when editing and creating items).
Recommend: To get more features and better optimize your OpenCart website for search engines, you should install the OpenCart SEO extensions such as Opencart SEO Pack.
#3: Avoid Duplicate Content
There are two ways to access your OpenCart site, one is http://YourOpencartSore.com and the other is http://www.YourOpencartSore.com. It shows search engines that you have 2 sites with the same content. And this will kill your site on SERP (search engines’ result pages).
What is the solution?
All of your links MUST go to one place!
By default, OpenCart doesn’t handle this redirect for you. You have to do that manually. But how?
Simple, you just need to edit your .htaccess file which can be found in the same folder that you installed OpenCart on your server (. Here is what the code looks like:
# Begin Redirect 301
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^kulerthemes\.com [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) http://kulerthemes.com/$1 [R=301,L]
# BEGIN OpenCart
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
# END OpenCart
That is all you need to redirect your OpenCart site from the “www version” to the “non-www version”. If you want to redirect from the non-www to the www, then swap lines 3 and 4 with this:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.kulerthemes\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www. kulerthemes.com/$1 [L,R=301]
Notes: You should make sure that your host allows you to edit the .htaccess file (most will) and remember to change kulerthemes.com to your domain name.
#4: Create a Robots.txt File.
When a search engine crawler comes to your OpenCart site, it will look for a special file on the website. That file is called robots.txt and it tells the search engine spider which pages of your OpenCart should be indexed and which pages should be ignored.
That’s why you should have a robots.txt file for your OpenCart site (click here to learn more about the robots.txt file and then create your one).
You still don’t know what to do? (Sorry the robot.txt thing is way too complicated).
So just copy and paste this code in an archive called “robots.txt” and upload it to your Opencart root directory:
User-agent: *
Allow: /
User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
Allow: /
User-agent: Googlebot
Allow: /
User-agent: Adsbot-Google
Allow: /
User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Allow: /
User-agent: Googlebot-Mobile
Allow: /
#5: Create XML Sitemap for your Opencart website.
Although OpenCart has created an HTML sitemap for you, you should still create another XML sitemap to get better ranking. Why?
With a XML sitemap, it’s much easier for the crawlers to see the complete structure of your site and retrieve it more efficiently. That’s why it will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your OpenCart web pages.
To create a XML sitemap for OpenCart, I recommend you use one of Opencart extensions to do that so.
#6: Use a clean OpenCart Theme
A clean OpenCart theme? It’s a theme which has valid XHTML code, and has a CSS stylesheet that is EASY to modify.
After I have worked in the SEO field for a while, I found that using a XHTML valid theme is very important for getting high ranking on search engines. It helps the crawlers to easier get your website data, so your site will be index faster, and rank higher.
All of our Opencart themesare designed for the XHTML standard, even it’s a FREE theme. So, just go to our themes showcase and download a theme you love.
#7: Add Google Analytics to Your OpenCart Site.
Google Analytics is a FREE, popular, powerful reporting and metrics tool for any website owners. It provides a valuable insight into how your website traffic, even where is potential keywords. You will know what to do next to improve your website’s ranking. That’s why it is so IMPORTANT for your online business. So, go to Google Analytics, create an account, and add the code to your OpenCart site.
Watch a video below for visual reference:
#8: Create a Blog for Your OpenCart Site
HubSpot’s Study shows that small businesses that blog gain 55% more website visitors, 97% more backlinks (inbound links – links from other websites to your website) and have 434% more indexed pages in average compared to those that do not blog.
I will not tell you what to do now as you already know it.
It’s simple to create a blog for your OpenCart site by using an Opencart blogging module. If you care about this, we’d love to help.
#9: Let’s Get Indexed Faster
Your OpenCart site will automatically be indexed by the search engines. But it might take long time. You do not need to wait until then, just submit your URL to these search engines to see immediate results. So go to Google, Yahoo, Bing and tell them your OpenCart store is launched.
#10: Create a Video Channel on YouTube
No doubt, YouTube is a great marketing channel for your OpenCart store. You can attract a lot of potential customers through it. And one more thing that you might unexpect is that YouTube can help you improve your ranking. But how?
YouTube helps you get more backlinks and increase trust from search engines.
By adding a video clip to the blog post, you can keep your customers stay longer on your site. This will help the search engines evaluate your site has useful content, attract readers and therefore, you get higher ranking.
#11: BOOST Social Networking
The algorithm of search engines (especially Google) recently appreciate the links which are shared through social networks. That’s why when the link is being sent to the network such as Facebook, Google Plus or Twitter, then it would be indexed immediately and has an opportunity to get TOP ranking in search engines.
It’s easy to create your business profile on Social Networking sites and start build community, then share your store information.
That’s it!
That’s all you should do to improve ranking for your OpenCart site now. Thank you for reading my OpenCart SEO guides. I can’t wait to listen your success stories. Share with us!
