MAGENTO SEO PAIN POINTS

We have worked on numerous Magento builds and here are some of the main SEO issues that hold merchants back from getting the proper love of Google and the other search engines:

• Non-optimized home page: the gateway to any business and the face of the business. The message must be polished and clear, and all SEO elements optimized. This does not come out-of-the-box and needs to be addressed.
• Category pages with irrelevant products: messy category pages will not help the search engines understand what exactly is being sold. This is crucial especially for eCommerce websites with large number of SKUs.
• Non-optimized product pages and product SEO elements: from titles and descriptions, to the actual content, all must benefit the user and the search engines, and needs to be fully optimized.

SEO ELEMENTS TO OPTIMIZE ON MAGENTO 2

Magento 2 has some built-in issues with some SEO elements and we address the following optimization(s):

• Meta tags (home page, categories, product)
• Internal linking (between various related products on the site)
• Image optimization (alts, titles, file names)
• Duplicate content suppressing: setting up canonicals and indexing optimization for filtered SKUs
• Indexing and crawlability optimization: sitemaps (XML, HTML), robots, URLs

ADDRESSING THE CORE CHALLENGES OF MAGENTO SEO!

While a powerful and flexible ecommerce platform, Magento often presents certain SEO challenges that are common among its users.
Here are two of the most common SEO issues faced by Magento users:

1. Duplicate Content – Search Engines Hate That!

• Product Variations and Filters: Magento’s advanced filtering and product variation options can inadvertently create multiple URLs for the same content. For example, when users filter products by attributes such as size, color, or price, Magento generates new URLs for each combination. This can lead to a proliferation of nearly identical pages, which search engines may interpret as duplicate content. Duplicate content can dilute SEO efforts by causing search engines to split ranking signals across multiple URLs instead of consolidating them into one authoritative page. In addition, this might cause a waste of the crawling budget, what could result in the main product or category pages not being indexed, or indexed after a real long periods of time.
• Category and Subcategory Pages: Magento often creates multiple URLs for category and subcategory pages, especially if products are listed in multiple categories. For instance, a product might be accessible via several different category paths, leading to multiple URLs for the same product page. This can confuse search engines and reduce the page’s ranking potential.

Solutions:

• Canonical Tags: Implementing canonical tags helps signal to search engines which version of a page is the preferred one, consolidating ranking signals.
• Noindex Tags: Applying noindex tags to filter and sort pages can prevent search engines from indexing them, reducing duplicate content issues, in addition to crawl budget optimization.
• URL Parameter Management: Properly configuring URL parameters in Google Search Console and Magento settings can help manage how search engines crawl and index different URL variations.

2. Poor URL Structure

• Dynamic URLs: Magento often generates dynamic URLs that are not SEO-friendly. These URLs may contain query strings and parameters that do not clearly convey the content or structure of the page. For example, URLs like name-of-magento-store.com/catalog/product/view/id/123 are not as effective for SEO as clean URLs like name-of-magento-store.com/name-of-product. Clear, descriptive URLs are crucial for both search engines and users to understand the content and relevance of a page, and greatly help with better Magento SEO.
• URL Length and Depth: Magento sites with deep category structures can result in long and complex URLs. For instance, a product located several categories deep might have a URL like name-of-magento-store.com/category/subcategory/sub-subcategory/name-of-product. Such URLs can be difficult for search engines to crawl and may result in lower rankings. So ideally, we’d want to shorten these yet keep them as descriptive as possible.

Solutions, to name a few:

• URL Rewrites: Utilize Magento’s URL rewrite tool to create clean, static URLs that are descriptive and keyword-rich. This improves the readability and SEO potential of your URLs.
• Flat Category and Product URLs: Enabling flat category and product URLs in Magento settings can help simplify URLs by removing unnecessary parameters and category paths.
• Consistent URL Structure: Ensure a consistent URL structure across the site, which helps search engines understand the hierarchy and relationship between different pages.

INDUSTRIES IN COLORADO WE SUPPORT

Pursuing highly active lifestyle, we had the privilege to consult many local Colorado brands from the following industries using Magento:

• Snowsports: snowboarding brands, ski and snowboard equipment online stores
• Running stores selling nationally
• Camping gear retailers
• Fishing equipment resellers and local fishing guides
• Local premium food stores with embedded POS
  

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