The typical SEO tactics for a Shopify store....

1. Create a list of category-specific search queries you want to target
2. Add those keywords to your collection pages meta title and content
3. Check into a tool like SEMrush to view and report on ranking
4. Create a few articles focused on those keywords
5. Rinse and repeat
6. Wait....

... and this is before we talk about product and brand based queries.

The growth opportunities you're leaving on the table by not actioning a data-informed and tech-automated process to your SEO? They're significant.

I've worked with DTC and retail brands across a wide variety of categories, price points and growth stages to help introduce marketers to the tools that help them achieve real organic growth (sales growth).

Great question. Don't forget, there are 2 aspects to your SEO strategy - building new content and optimising existing content. Far too many brands sway towards constant content creation. The smarter brands have a process of review that helps them to get the best response (rank, resonate and conversion) out of their existing work.

So, to get back to your question about the required SEO tools. GSC (Google Search Console) holds a stack of valuable data on page impressions and clicks that you're probably not making best use of. So, that's where I want you to start.

Most marketers head over to Search Console to have a good look around, spot a few surprises and consider the trend movement of performance graphs across Impressions, Clicks, Average Positions and Click Thru Rates. All good. Put let's put that data to proper use.

1.) You'll need an SEO tool to help you extract insights simply and easily from all that Search Console data. There are a few on the market, all very competitively priced and some that I recommend more than others. It depends on the volume of data you're working with. I'm happy to provide advice on this to you, just get in touch.

2.) You'll need an SEO tool that helps you uncover the questions people are asking around your category and products. This is how you gather the data on the popular marketing cliche - the pain point. This mainly applies to brands creating products that solve problems. Less worthwhile to fashion brands as an example. This data will help you to formulate a key part of your strategy to position your brand as an authority brand. You're there answering the questions your customers pose. It's a hugely valuable element to your SEO strategy and one you need to get to work on right away. Again, let me know and I'll be more than happy to offer my advice.

3.) You'll need an SEO tool to create keyword clusters from your Search Console. With 1000's of search terms available to you it is part of your remit to categorise all that data into workable insights. That way you know who you're targeting for each particular article, product description or guide that you create. Without keyword clustering, you're working with too large a pool of data to make any sense of. This way you can structure and prioritise your SEO strategy more effectively. So you can work quicker. This is all automated, so no massive time constraints on your day.

With data to hand you're in a far greater position to begin creating content that ranks, resonates and converts. That's the aim of your SEO... to drive real ecommerce growth.

You'll also need to ensure you're creating content using the correct platform for your needs. No point in using the Shopify built-in blogging feature. It puts so much constraint on your work. There are landing page and blogging platforms straight off the shelf and built for Shopify that can help take your SEO efforts to the next level. Get in touch and I'll walk you through exactly what you will need.