This is the guide for everyone who want to improve the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of their store.
It is divided into a couple of sections to make it more friendly to read.
Please note this is my personal point of view about what to do if you want to boost Your SEO.
1. Get SSL certificate and enable it in PrestaShop
There are many reasons to get the SSL certificate. Aside from security it will also improve your SEO. You can read more here: https://www.brightedge.com/blog/http-https-and-seo/
If you have the certificate and want to enable it in Presta, check my article located here: http://prestacraft.com/enabling-ssl-in-prestashop-tips-and-issues/
2. Set up the URLs in the BackOffice
Once you enter your BackOffice, please go to Preferences > SEO & URLs tab. Make sure you have enabled Friendly URL option and Redirect to the canonical URL is set to 301.
Of course please check also if your friendly URLs are inserted correctly like you can see below:
In last section of this configuration page there is an ability to change the default schema of URLs. It looks like this.
However default settings are just fine and SEO friendly – so there is not any neccesity to change them.
3. Check META tags of your products, CMS pages (and modules)
This is very important step for your pages visibility. Check if your products and CMS pages META tags are set. For CMS pages – make sure the Indexation by search engines is enabled. Example screenshots:
– product settings
– CMS page settings
4. Generate and setup Google XML Sitemap
Generate
Go to BackOffice module list and search for sitemap. You should see on the list an official PrestaShop module which looks like this:
Install and configure it.
You can see my recommended settings below:
If you have a module which contains SEO-important data (like SmartBlog) you should also see additional checkbox/checkboxes. You should check them all to make this data visible in your Sitemap.
Setup
For now (April 2018) you have two options to setup your sitemap.
1. Send it via Google Search Console panel – click here
2. Create (or edit) robots.txt file in Your store root directory. Add there a line:
Sitemap: YOUR SITEMAP URL
Get your sitemap URL from module configuration page:
5. Check alt attributes for all your images
You can do this by inspecting image. Right click on it and select option “Inspect element” (works in Chrome, Firefox and probably any other modern browser). Then check if target image has an alt="" attribute. If not, you should look for this image in your code (I prefer PhpStorm). If you can’t find it in the code it has to be in the database.
If your image is in:
– the product description, check ps_product_lang table.
– the category description, check ps_category_lang table.
– the CMS page, check ps_cms_lang table.
If it is in a custom place, inspect the source and nearby DOM elements and try to find a module it comes from. Then you have to look for any database tables connected with this module. It might be time consuming and difficult, but it’s still a boost for your SEO.
6. Add nofollow attribute to your links
This is similar to the previous point. But here we have links instead of images, and rel instead of alt attribute.
And this time only a few links are going to be changed.
Add rel=”nofollow” to following links:
– “My account”
– Terms and Conditions (if you have it in your footer)
– Order history
– Create account / Sign in
This should be enough, however If you have some URL’s you don’t want to be “followed” by search engines, add this attribute to them.
7. Unique h1 header (title) on each page
You should have one unique h1 header on each page of Your store.
For product page – it might be product name
For category page – it might be category name
For CMS page – it might be CMS page name
And each another page should have its own title.
8. Check your Header tags order (h1, h2, h3…)
To keep your content optimized you should reorder its headers.
If you are going from top to the bottom of content, all headers should have higher number.
Example:
h1 – h2 – h2 – h3 – h5 – correct structure
h1 – h3 – h3 – h2 – incorrect structure (h2 should appear before h3)
9. Disable indexing
You should place it in the header of:
– Login / Register pages
– Order pages
– Cart pages
10. Consider purchasing decent SEO module
Of course there are modules created to help you dealing with SEO.
Click here for some official marketplace offers.
Installing a good module can boost your SEO significantly.
That’s all. Thanks for reading.
Please note this is my personal point of view about what to do if you want to boost Your SEO.
If you have any questions or ideas for booting SEO in PrestaShop feel free to comment and share.