How to do SEO on Magento 2 Website?

What is Magento 2 eCommerce Platform?

Among various eCommerce platforms, Magento (Now called Adobe Commerce) is taking the league. It offers multi-features that benefit the eCommerce store owners to ease-up their operations and customers to enjoy a seamless UX. Though other eCommerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce also offer somewhat similar features, but the weight of Magento is heavier because of the following advantages: 

• Manage multiple stores from one admin panel 
• Availability of multi-language features 
• multi-currency features prevent consumers from paying extra charges 
• International Support
• Shipping Facilities 
• Order Management
• Huge Customization Options
• Secured Platform
• Freedom To Select The Hosted Platform
• Better Payment Process

How to speed up Magento 2 website?

Huge proportion of websites present on the Internet are powered by Magento 2. 

Here are some essential tips to speed up your Magento 2 site:

• Choose reliable hosting partner
• Prevent installing unnecessary extensions
• Always update indexers
• Clean logs & databases timely
• Upgrade packages & databases regularly
• Stay updated with latest magento version
• Integrate Javascript and CSS file
• Enable Caching 
• Say NO to JS bundling
• Optimize CSS Delivery Network 
• Setup an HTTP Accelerator 
• Opt for lightweight themes
• Optimize Images
• Switch to headless architecture
• Enable Flat Catalog
• Manually Reindex Data
• Set up a Content Delivery Network

How to do SEO on Magento 2 powered websites?

Doing SEO on Magento 2 powered websites is not a hard nut to crack. Most of the elements, which an SEO Toronto executive needs to work on remain the same like: 

• Meta descriptions/Titles
• Title tags 
• Canonical tags for product and category pages
• Robots.txt and Sitemap.xml
• Blogging
• Backlinks profile creation
• URLs
• Activating and updating GBP profile 

But, achieving higher rankings in the search engine results page, demands you to work on some of the technical elements that are regarded as ‘Advanced SEO’. Don’t fret! Magento 2 have made things easier by incorporating in-built functionality

ADVANCED SEO

Rectify Faceted Navigation

One of the major issues experienced by SEO executives encounter is duplicacy issues aroused owing to faceted navigation. Before we dive into the solutions let me help you get a clear idea of ‘What is Faceted Navigation’? 

We usually experience the availability of filters on almost all the eCommerce sites, which allows us to view products as per our specifications for color, size & model type etc.
The more combinations with different filters, the more duplicacy issues come to surface. 

To get rid of these issues, here is the solution offered by Magento 2: 

• Deindex or use canonical tags on low quality pages from faceted navigation. 
• Block low value parameters from getting crawled in robots.txt file

No Canonical Tags

It is essential to apply canonical tags to the similar content having product and category pages. If you won’t apply any canonical tags, Google will consider it as a manipulative act. Adobe Commerce has made the application of canonical tags easier. Here are some of the steps which you need to follow: 

Step 1: Visit STORES

Step 2: Click on CONFIGURATION

Step 3: Select CATALOG from catalog dropdown 

Step 4: Now, search SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION dropdown

Step 5: Set USE CANONICAL LINK META TAG FOR CATEGORIES to Yes

Step 6: Set USE CANONICAL LINK META TAG FOR PRODUCT to YES 

Step 7: Save by clicking on SAVE CONFIG

Keep Robot.txt file Updated

It is critical to keep the robots.txt file updated. But keeping a regular check on it becomes challenging if it needs to be accessed at a different platform or it is not integrated with your magento’s interface. Since Adobe Commerce is a problem solver and not a problem creator, it has already integrated the feature of robot.txt file with your magento store. Here is how you can access it: 

Step 1: Go to ADMIN sidebar 

Step 2: Follow this path – CONTENT > DESIGN > CONFIGURATION

Step 3: Select EDIT after finding STORE VIEW 

Step 4: Click on SEARCH ENGINE ROBOTS dropdown 

Step 5: Make necessary changes in your robot.txt file through EDIT CUSTOM INSTRUCTION OF ROBOT.TXT FILE

Make URLs Clean & Concise

An “.html” URL extension gets added at the end of all product and category URLs, by default. Though this aspect is not considered bad for SEO, it makes the URLs lengthier, killing its concise look. No need to worry as Adobe Commerce has a ‘Few-Click-Away-Solution’ to offer. Here are the steps: 

Step 1: Go to STORES, then click on NAVIGATION 

Step 2: Select CATALOG from CATALOG dropdown

Step 3: Access dropdown named SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Step 4: Find these fields: PRODUCT URL SUFFIX & CATEGORY URL SUFFIX 

Step 5: Now replace “.html” with “/”

Step 6: Click on “SAVE CONFIG.”

Conclusion

Magento 2 is a powerful eCommerce platform that offers a multitude of features for store owners and customers alike. However, to achieve success in search engine rankings, it is important to implement effective SEO strategies. Some basic SEO elements such as meta descriptions, title tags, canonical tags, and backlinks profile creation remain the same, but there are also advanced SEO elements that require attention. By following the tips mentioned in this article, such as rectifying faceted navigation, applying canonical tags, updating robots.txt file, and making URLs clean and concise, you can effectively optimize your Magento 2 website for search engines and improve your online visibility.