Optimize SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies for improving your ranking in search results.
When you rank higher in searches on reputable search engines such as Google, not only does this increase the visibility of your business, but this also increases your chances of producing organic leads that help you to reach your target audience faster and generate more sales.
SEO Optimization Tools on Payhip
To help you optimize your Payhip store, we have listed all the places where you can add meta titles, implement relevant keywords, add engaging content, and customize URLs.
1. Custom pages
A page's title is important since it acts as a headline and is prominently displayed on the search engine results page when users conduct a search. It tells visitors what your page is about and gives them a glimpse of what they can find on your page. This is why titles play such a big role in influencing a visitor's decision whether to click through your link or not.
To add meta titles for your custom pages, click the cog icon to select Page Settings and head over to the SEO tab. You will also see there how your custom pages will appear in the search results preview.
2. Collection pages
By default, Payhip will use your about me description as your store description, but this can be changed by editing the SEO description of your All Products collection.
On your edit collection page, scroll down until you see the Advanced Options section and then click the Edit collection page SEO description checkbox. Once you have saved your changes, the description you added is what Google results will eventually pick up as your store description.
3. Blogs
When adding images to your blogs, you are able to add image alt texts that help improve your SEO. Adding a description for your images also helps search engine crawlers understand what that image is.
4. Custom domains
If you have a custom domain connected to Payhip, you have the ability to customize product URLs. You will see a new option on the edit product page.
If you plan to set up and connect a custom domain, this article can guide you: Custom Domain
Having a well-structured URL can help you associate the right keywords for your product pages. If you are looking to rank higher on the search results for a specific keyword, this will make it easier for Google to locate and retrieve your web pages on your Payhip store.
To give you an example:
An unoptimized link would look like this: https://payhip.com/b/abcde
An optimized link would look like this: https://samplewebsite.com/b/wooden-picture-frames
5. Courses
Similar to blogs, you can also add alt texts when you upload images for your online courses. This increases the chances of your images showing up in image search results which can also help you generate organic traffic or get organic visitors to your website.
6. Product images
To add alt tags to your product images on Payhip, find the Advanced Options section for your product and click the cog icon.
A tip for writing alt tags is to use descriptive, plain language, e.g. "Colorful recipe book cover featuring enticing dishes and vibrant ingredients with the title 'Delicious Creations Cookbook' prominently displayed."
7. Sitemap
Custom Domains now have a sitemap.xml and it gets autogenerated every 24 hours.
Example: https://samplewebsite.com/sitemap.xml
This helps improve the discoverability and visibility of your website in search engine results. So, having a sitemap.xml file can be highly beneficial for your website's search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.
Other general SEO optimization tips
1. Link to your Payhip store
Providing backlinks to your Payhip store means that you are linking to your Payhip store from another website; e.g. if you own another website, write articles on other people's platforms, etc. Get other content creators to provide backlinks to your Payhip store as well. Backlinks can boost your rankings on search engines, resulting in more traffic to your store.
2. Use keywords in product titles
If you’re selling an ebook on “how to be an artist”, be sure to include the word “ebook” in the product title as it helps Google to accurately identify your product and for searchers to easily find your ebook.
3. Write thoughtful product descriptions
Each product page should have a unique detailed description that “sells'' the item to your customers and also search engines. Stay away from copy-pasting the same descriptions across different products as it may dilute the ranking for both pages. Include keywords that are relevant to your product and industry. This helps people to find your products online when they search for related terms.
4. Create a blog
Use Payhip’s blog feature to create blog content that is relevant to your niche. The more content that you produce, the more chances you’ll have to get one of those pages ranking on search engines. Remember to share your blog posts on social media to build more traffic.
5. Write an About Us page
Write a comprehensive "About Us" or "About Me" page that includes information about you, your industry and your products to give Google more context about your website.
6. Collect customer reviews
Customer reviews help to increase the content on your product pages. You can enable customer reviews on your Payhip store to get started.
7. Start an affiliate program
You can use Payhip's free affiliate feature to create your own affiliate program. An affiliate program allows you to reward your affiliate partners with commission when they successfully bring you more sales. You can recruit new affiliate partners by reaching out to bloggers or other content creators, and asking them to write about your online store. This not only allows you to tap into your affiliate partners' audience, but also allows you to get more backlinks from your affiliate partners.
8. Other tips
When you're ready to take SEO optimization to the next level, invest in keyword-research tools online so you can find not only relevant keywords to your niche, but also the volume and ranking difficulty of each keyword. You can also use these tools to see the keywords that your competitors are ranking for (and therefore you should try to rank for those too!).
All that considered, remember that you should always prioritize your customers' experience before SEO. That means your content needs to be valuable and easily readable. No one wants to read product descriptions that are stuffed with keywords that can't be understood. Prioritize optimizing your store for real people rather than for search engines.