WooCommerce SEO: Techniques, plugins, and themes

Start with keyword research

Keyword research is the first step to optimizing your WooCommerce site. You need to know what your target audience and niche are looking for in the search engines and adapt categories and tags accordingly.

The right keywords, reflecting your target customers, should be used wisely everywhere – in product category pages, product pages, product descriptions, titles, and tags. 

That doesn’t mean you should overstuff every phrase with keywords, though. Apply them naturally, as close as possible to regular language use. 

You can use several tools and plugins to research keywords discussed below, such as Semrush. 

The plugins will use a focus keyword defined by you, research related keywords and phrases, and scan your WooCommerce sites suggesting where to insert them. 

You can also use Google Analytics and Trends for more information on the keywords, related searches, or demographics. The Keyword Tool allows you to research keywords on Google, YouTube, social media, Amazon, or eBay, but search volume will require subscriptions starting from $69 monthly. 

Have SEO-friendly product titles and descriptions

Product titles, and descriptions are content that must be optimized. 

To improve your WooCommerce product SEO, add relevant information about what’s being sold and keywords that allow the merch to be found by your target audience. 

If your WooCommerce products come from print on demand or other manufacturers, adapt the product descriptions to your target audience and make them unique. Remember that pages with the same content will compete to rank in the search engines. 

The product’s SEO title and other page information can be edited with SEO plugins, as you’ll see below.

Focus on SEO titles, meta descriptions, and URLs

SEO titles and meta descriptions are the information displayed on search engine result pages.

When optimizing them, your intention should be to inform Google about your page or product and to convince prospective customers to visit your WooCommerce site. Insert your main keyword in the product page’s title and meta description. If possible, use secondary keywords, especially in the meta descriptions.

Every WooCommerce SEO plugin allows you to edit each page’s SEO title and meta description, including product pages. The plugins usually also show how the information is expected to be displayed in search results. Still, sometimes Google shows slightly different results than planned. 

Finally, edit the product’s URL slug and add the focus keyword.

Optimize product images

Product images can be optimized in at least two ways – adding Alt text and adjusting their sizes. 

The Alt text is a description of the product image. It should be human-readable, as it’s displayed when or while the image is not. 

The filename will be shown if an Alt text is not intentionally added to the image. Therefore, adding understandable Alt text with keywords improves your WooCommerce store’s SEO. 

Product images should also be optimized for fast-loading pages, as the loading speed affects the SEO and may lead to losing customers. 

Image size optimization aims to reduce image sizes without losing quality.

It’s possible to optimize images manually with software like Photoshop or GIMP, but it can be time-consuming.

Alternatively, you can acquire a plugin to automate the task. These are the best plugins available for image optimization:

ShortPixel – The two months free plan lets you optimize up to 100 images per month. Paid plans start from $3.99 monthly. ShortPixel allows escalation to millions of pictures with a 32 cores dedicated server.

Ewww Image Optimizer – Starting from $7 monthly with one site, unlimited images, and 200 GB. 

Imagify – Freemium. The free plan allows up to 20 MB in unlimited sites and 200-250 images. Monthly plans from $4.99.

WP Smush – Free trial for seven days. From $7.50 monthly. Optimization in bulk, unlimited images, 2x compression, WebP conversion, PNG to JPG conversion.

Optimole – Two months free. All features are available on the free plan, including unlimited images. After 5,000 visits to the website, an upgrade is required. Plans start from $19.08 monthly and 25,000 visits. Supports JPG, PNG, and SVG.

Setup and optimize product categories and tags

Organizing your WooCommerce products with categories and tags helps customers find what they’re looking for. Categories and tags are also necessary to improve your ranking and WooCommerce product SEO, as they inform Google about what your products are.

Creating product categories is intuitive, using related products’ main attributes to group them, for instance, t-shirts, clocks, or bags. 

Category pages are hierarchical, so you can create subcategories to make your website structure more comprehensive. Instead of creating a product category for women’s t-shirts, you can create a subcategory inside the main t-shirt category. 

Use tags inside categories and subcategories to inform the customers and the search engines of specific attributes. For example, you can attribute tags such as “organic” or “ringspun cotton” to products in the bags category to indicate their fabric.  

Categories and tags should be optimized in the same manner as products. Use the Yoast SEO meta box or the equivalent tool in your SEO plugin to edit the SEO title and meta description of the product category pages, using the appropriate keywords wisely. 

Descriptions of categories and tags can be displayed automatically by some, but not all, themes – don’t take it for granted. Using the Elementor Page Build can solve this with the Archive description option.

Use breadcrumbs

A breadcrumb is a path with links that shows the users exactly where they are on the website and makes it easy to return to previous pages. 

Besides helping customers navigate the website, breadcrumbs are also used by Google to understand the website structure.  

Several SEO plugins, such as AIOSEO, Yoast SEO, or Rank Math, let you easily create breadcrumbs. Some themes offer it as a built-in resource. 

Don’t forget about canonicalization

Duplicate content and different versions of an URL harm a website’s SEO. It’s preferable to use only one URL version. Still, duplication may occur, especially in WooCommerce websites with many categories and product pages.  

According to Google, a canonical URL best represents a master page from a group of duplicates. Google chooses one of the similar pages as canonical, and you can let the search engines know which one is the master copy by adding a canonical tag in the HTML code.

SEO plugins such as Rank Math make that task easy without coding.

Be fast and be safe

Website speed interferes with SEO. Search engines rank fast-loading eCommerce websites higher than slow pages. 

Many factors may impact your WordPress website speed. We’ve just discussed how to optimize image sizes. Besides that, two other fundamental factors must be considered:

• Themes – WooCommerce themes are far more than just an aesthetic choice. They incorporate functionality, including built-in SEO, integration with different page builders, compatibility with translation, and RTL languages. 
• Web hosting providers – a good provider will influence two factors – speed and safety. It’s important to avoid shared hosting.

Always go for trusted hosting providers like Hostinger, Kinsta or Bluehost. You’ll have access to customer support, one click installation for WordPress, domain registration, SSL certificates, and increased website security.

An SSL certificate, for example, is an absolute must for all eCommerce websites. Besides the increased security for your entire WooCommerce site, addresses starting with HTTPS will rank higher in the search results.

Use WordPress SEO plugins

WordPress.org, together with WooCommerce, already have built-in functionality to optimize the pages and content for better visibility in the search engines. Still, some areas, such as keyword optimization, will greatly benefit from additional plugins. 

Plugins are easy to install, set up and use. You’ll get features to improve website performance and speed. On top of that, you’ll get suggestions to improve on-site SEO, such such as adding specific keywords to the SEO title, categories, and tags or finding broken links and duplicate content.

Finally, a WordPress SEO plugin makes it easier to tweak SEO settings that would require an HTML edition. Some functions, such as adding breadcrumbs, are done easily and professionally with a plugin. 

Now, we’ll review a selection of the best SEO plugins for WooCommerce.

Learn more about SEO and get inspiration from other platforms to apply to your store with our Shopify SEO article.

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Rank Math

Rank Math is at the top of our list of WooCommerce SEO plugins for offering a broader range of functionality already at the free plan. Also, the annual subscription of $59 makes it the WooCommerce SEO service offering more bang for your buck. 

Rank Math simplifies WooCommerce optimization. It’s easy to install and comes with a setup wizard to analyze the whole website, configuring it to optimal settings. 

The plugin imports SEO configurations from other previously installed plugins right after the installation, during the initial setup.

Rank Math’s interface is user-friendly. Most necessary functions are available in the free plan. That includes import from other plugins, integration with Elementor and Divi, Focus Keyword, Google keyword suggestion, content analysis, bulk edit title and descriptions, Google search console integration, 18 schemas, and auto canonical URLs. 

The plugin also integrates with social media, including Facebook, Linkedin, and Pinterest.

The content AI tool is also available in the free plan, doing keyword research related to the focus keyword and comparing the page with competitors.

This tool works with Content Credits, which the free plan has five of. Each keyword research for the Content AI uses one credit. More are acquired by upgrading the plan or separately –  50 credits cost $19.  

Advanced analytics functions, including keyword manager, require an upgrade. 

Price: From $59 annually.

Yoast SEO

Yoast has been the most popular SEO plugin for years and is still a strong contender among the best. Some of its features, like the Yoast SEO meta box, are the industry standard.  

The free plan offers a basic set of functions for SEO management and access to six free courses.  

Yoast SEO Premium builds upon the already solid experience offered by the free plan. 

The SEO workouts regularly check and create a routine of SEO tasks, such as checking for broken links and keyword usage.

Yoast Premium capabilities are broad – the plugin allows keyphrase management and suggests synonyms. It manages redirects to avoid 404 errors, adds structured data automatically, creates breadcrumbs, and optimizes the XML sitemap. 

The plugin also offers visual proofing tools for Google and social media posts. It integrates with Semrush, Wincher, Elementor, Zapier, and WordProof. 

Price: Freemium. Paid plans from $99 annually.

All in One SEO

All in One SEO is a popular WooCommerce SEO plugin offered as one of the core plugins to be installed together with WordPress by some hosting providers, such as SiteGround. 

AIOSEO is one of the easiest to use WooCommerce SEO plugins. Its free plan offers basic features like SEO titles, management of XML sitemaps, analyzing blog posts, paragraph lengths, use of passive voice, distribution of headings and subheadings, and their analysis, with attribution of readability.

However, the plugin’s core functionality is offered only in the premium plans. Most core features are already available in the affordable basic plan that allows using the plugin on one website and standard support. 

The main convenience of the advanced plans is the support and number of sites. Also, the more expensive plans allow the management of links, 404 error tracking and redirecting, news and video sitemaps, as well as local and image SEO modules.

From the basic plan, AIOSEO offers unlimited keywords, SEO scores, WooCommerce SEO, sitemaps, social media integration, smart schema markup, SEO modules, and breadcrumbs. 

Price: Freemium. Paid plans from $49.60 annually.

Semrush

Semrush is widely popular in eCommerce and is the industry standard for keyword research and analysis. Most professional blogs, online stores, and businesses use or have used this tool. 

In addition to targeted WooCommerce SEO plugins, the tool can be used externally to analyze several platforms, including websites and social media. 

Semrush excels in keyword research, tracking keywords, and analyzing the competition’s link profiles, but it comes with a price tag.

You can use the free plan as long as you want. However, this option limits the number of related keywords for research, the number of projects, and link building, to a total of 10 internal credits per day.

The Semrush SEO Writing Assistant, a WordPress plugin, provides readability score, target keywords, recommended keywords, analyzes the tone of voice, detects plagiarism, and offers recommendations for optimizing content. Link issues, tone of voice, and plagiarism check requires a paid Semrush plan.

The plugin can be expanded by the SEO Writing Assistant SEMrush Custom Fields. 

Price: The plugins are free but require a Semrush account to work. Semrush plans start from $119.85 monthly.

JetPack

JetPack is a plugin focused on improving website speed and security. JetPack also offers additional features outside of the core packages, so you can optimize them for your needs. 

Jetpack boost focuses on speed. It checks the site performance and enables easy improvements. It can optimize critical CSS loading by moving the more relevant formatting information to the start of the page but requires acquiring a plan. 

Jetpack boost also enables deferring non-essential JavaScript and allowing lazy image loading.  

Other functions offered by JetPack are downtime monitoring, creative mail, and social media sharing. 

Price: From $59.40. Individual purchases of additions like anti-spam.

WooCommerce SEO by WordLift

WooCommerce SEO by the WordLift plugin is designed for online stores. 

To improve WooCommerce product SEO, the plugin makes adding structured data to the online store products and categories easier. On top of that, it helps to display them in Google’s product listings and to get Rich Snippets. 

The WordPress SEO plugin connects products to editorial content and offers widgets for getting product recommendations.

Finally, subscribers can book a demonstration with the developers to learn how to operate the plugin correctly and get the most out of it.

Price: $79 billed annually.

SEOPress

The free version of SEOPress offers an extensive range of features. 

That includes the management of SEO titles and descriptions, HTML and XML sitemaps, Google Analytics, image Alt texts, captions, and descriptions. The free plan also allows for editing canonical URLs, defining redirections, or integration with Microsoft Clarity. 

Some relevant features such as breadcrumbs, 404 monitoring, eliminating broken links, structured data, and Rich Snippets require a premium plan.

Price: From $49 annually.

Honorable mentions

Broken Link Checker – This plugin checks internal and external links and monitors broken links.

WP Backlinks – Monitors backlinks directly from the WordPress dashboard.  From $19.99 monthly.

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Divi

Produced by Elegant Themes, Divi is particularly popular due to its emphasis on the graphic interface and drag and drop editor.

Divi integration with WooCommerce is solid, enhanced by several modules that allow full ownership of the eCommerce store.   

The theme is integrated with Rank Math. Divi’s proprietary Article Schema for SEO provides a good range of seamlessly integrated SEO features. 

Price: $89 annually, or $249 for a lifetime license.

Astra

The ​​Astra code is lightweight and clean, optimized for SEO. The developers’ claim is bold – the theme requires less than 50 KB to run and 0.5 seconds to load. In addition, it’s integrated with the Yoast SEO plugin to boost its optimization. 

The theme integrates with Gutenberg blocks and drag and drop editors like Elementor and Beaver builder.

Astra offers over 230 pre-built optimized demo websites.

Price: Freemium. Premium plans from $59.

WooCommerce Storefront

Storefront is the standard and most popular WooCommerce theme. 

The theme is deep-integrated with WooCommerce and is optimized for SEO. 

Storefront isn’t eye-catching out of the box, which may turn off inexperienced users. However, its visuals can be customized to produce a gorgeous website. 

The maturity of its back-end integrations makes Storefront a reliable choice for the WooCommerce SEO-friendly theme.

Price: Free. Storefront extension bundle for one payment of $69.

Neve

Neve is a lightweight, highly customizable, and WordPress SEO-friendly theme. Much of its resources are offered in the free version, making the theme a good option for any WP beginner to experiment with without spending money. 

The theme is compatible with several drag and drop editors, including Elementor and Beaver Builder, and works with Gutenberg blocks. 

Finally, Neve is fully compatible with the major SEO plugins, including Rank Math, Yoast, and AIOSEO. 

Price: Freemium. Paid plans start from $69 annually.

Woostify

Woostify checks all the boxes for a WooCommerce SEO-friendly theme. Its code is optimized for SEO, and the theme is flexible and expandable, integrating with most page builders (including Divi) and SEO plugins. 

The theme is affordable. In addition to the generous package with the free option, Woostify offers the option to subscribe annually or to buy a lifetime license. 

Price: Freemium. Paid plans from $49 annually or $99 for a personal lifetime license.

Flatsome

With a core code of only 56 kB – the rest is lazy-loaded – Flatsome boasts fast performance, responsiveness, and outstanding user experience.

The theme’s drag and drop builder is inherent and Gutenberg compatible, helping improve performance without requiring extra plugins.

Besides the built-in features, Flatsome improves SEO by integrating with the Yoast plugin.

Price: $59 for a regular license.

ShoppingCart

ShoppingCart is a responsive theme designed for eCommerce and business, according to its developers. 

Packed with resources, the theme can also be used in various applications beyond eCommerce. It comes with built-in SEO optimization and is compatible with the breadcrumb NavXT. 

The theme may look a bit old-school, appealing to online stores interested in classic aesthetics, but it can be tweaked and customized by users looking for a more modern and sleek appearance. 

Price: Freemium. Paid options from a payment of $59 plus annual renewals of $20.

Porto

Porto, developed by ThemeForest, is optimized for performance. Although it comes out of the box using Elementor and Gutenberg, it’s also fully compatible with most drag and drop editors. 

The developers ensure Porto is optimized for performing well even under shared hosting. 

Besides its built-in optimization and compatibility with SEO plugins, Porto also offers built-in Rich Snippets and breadcrumbs. 

Price: One payment of $59.

You can learn more about WooCommerce themes and check out our selection of the 30 best themes for WooCommerce stores on our blog.