“Out-of-the-box” Magento SEO: 4 tips for optimizing your eCommerce site visibility

Why did you purchase Magento? Likely to sell your awesome products! But you need people to find your products in order to buy them. Luckily, Magento is one of the most search engine-friendly eCommerce platforms around. Here are a few tips for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that Magento Enterprise already has available for you without even purchasing additional add-ons or plug-ins — they’re sure to enhance your site visibility, and in turn, help you increase sales:

1. Remove index.php from your URLs
   Go to System > Configuration > Web > Search Engine Optimization.
   Under “Use Web Server Rewrites,” select “Yes.” This will remove index.php from your URLs and create more readable URLs.
2. Allow your site to be crawled
   Go to System > Configuration > Design > HTML Head
   Under “Default Robots,” select “INDEX, FOLLOW.” This will allow search engines to crawl through your site and show up in the search results.
   
   
3. Use the full potential of your images
   Create an actual description in the label when uploading an image to your product. For example, “Silver Heart Necklace” as shown below:
   
   
   Also, name the image with a bit of description. For example, use “silver-heart-necklace-diamonds-chain.jpg” rather than an arbitrary value such as “P1305463.jpg”.
4. Magento and Google are friends!
   Magento has opened its arms to Google and in turn, there are a few features that you should be taking advantage of.
   1. Generating and adding a Google Sitemap
      Go to Catalog > Google Sitemap > Add SitemapSet the filename to: sitemap.xml then click “Save & Generate”.
   2. Enable your Google Analytics
      Go to System > Configuration > Google API
      Under Google Analytics simply select “Yes” from the Enable dropdown and enter in your Google Analytics Account Number.
      

By starting with these SEO tips, you can optimize your eCommerce store to be more visible to potential customers. These Search Engine Optimization techniques help ensure that you maximize the amount of traffic to your site, as well as steer customers to the right pages in your store when they search for items so that you can increase conversions and revenue.

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Related posts on Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

• Simple search engine optimization tips for your website

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