Step By Step Guide to improve opencart SEO 

After the module installation, the admin needs to go to Extensions > Modules and click Edit.

As a result, the following page will open, consequently, the admin can manage the module settings.

Status

The admin can set the Status as Enabled to use the Advanced SEO module. Else select Disabled if you do not want to use it.

General

• SEF Extension – Firstly, enter any suffix for the SEO URLs which will appear at the end of every SEO URL.
• Send Mail to Admin – Also, facilitates the admin to get an email when any user hits the wrong SEO to redirect on the right page.
• Bing Content ID – Further, enter the Bing Content ID.

How to get Bing Content ID?

• To Sign In and Sign-Up click here.
• Now click here to get the documentation to verify the ownership of your website.

First Step

Second Step

Third Step

Fourth Step

Rich Snippets

Rich Snippet Status – Select Enabled to display rich snippets on the search result page, else select Disabled.

There will be various rich snippets properties available for the products. Select Yes to display the rich snippet property, else select No to hide.

Custom Redirects

The admin can add the redirect URLs for the wrong URLs which are most visited. The admin will add the redirect from and redirect to URL as shown in the image below.

Now, the admin can add FAQ from the backend involving basic user queries. As a result, this will help improve the search engine ranking of the store.

The admin can click on the add icon and enter a question and its required answer and click Save.

SEF

Now, the admin needs to provide SEF (Search Engine Friendly) Keywords for various pages of the store. Go to Advanced SEO>SEF. Enter the SEF Keywords for all the pages of the store. The admin can provide multi-language keywords.

Note:

• The customer will be redirected to the updated URL even if the SEF is updated.
• Further, the redirection will work for the last three SEF URLs only.

Sitemap

To do settings for the Sitemap file, go to Advanced SEO > Sitemap. As a result, the following page will open.

Frequency – Select when to update the sitemap file for web crawling. Options available – Never, Always, Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly.

Modification Date – Select what web page modified date to show on the search result page. Select None for hiding the page modified date.

Select Server’s Response Time for displaying the modified dates according to the last web page update date. Further, the admin can also show a custom modification date from the calendar.

Priority – Select the priority for the web crawling. If None is selected, the web crawling will be done according to search bots rules. In Automatic, the default priority will be Homepage – 1, Category – 1, Product – 1, Manufacture – 0.7, and Information – 0.5.

The admin can also set the custom priority manually. The priority range should be between 0-1.

Generate Sitemap – After configuring the settings, the admin can click Generate Sitemap button. The sitemap.xml will be created in the root directory.

Save Sitemap – Click this button, to save any changes or updates to the sitemap settings.

After generating the sitemap file, the admin can go to Google Webmasters for viewing the website performance and improving the search result.

Note: The sitemap can be automatically generated through Cron Job.

For Generating SiteMap Automatically

The admin needs to set up the cron for a user, first login ssh to the server then run the command crontab – e to edit the cron and add the below the mentioned command.

 To create Search Engine Optimized URLs for category pages, please go to Catalog>Categories. Click Edit on any category and then go to the Data tab.

Enter the SEO URL in the field. The admin can provide multi-language URLs.

Click Save to apply the changes.

Now, for improving the product page SEO, there are various options available. The admin can configure the meta information, SEO URLs, Open Graph, Twitter Cards, Rich Snippets.

Meta Information

First, the admin needs to enter the meta details for the product. Go to Catalog > Products. Click Edit on any product, go to the General tab, and then enter the Meta Title, Description, and Meta Keywords.

There is an option to generate Meta information automatically. The admin can provide multi-language keywords.

The admin will see the suggestions for improving the meta-information.

SEO URL

Go to the Data tab for creating an SEO URL for the product. The admin can provide multi-language SEO URLs.

There is an option to generate SEO URLs automatically, click Generate Unique Keyword.

SEO Tool

For doing the advanced search engine optimization for the product, go to the SEO Tool tab. The following options will be available.

Snippet Preview

The admin can view the Google search snippet preview of the product. It can further edit or update the meta details of the product and view the live preview.

Enter any target keyword for the product, which will help in product searching.

The admin can preview and edit snippet information for other languages also.

Desktop –  Click desktop for viewing the snippet preview according to desktop search view.

Mobile –  Click Mobile for viewing the Google search snippet preview according to the mobile search view.

Social

Under this tab, the admin can create Facebook Open Graph and Twitter Cards for the products. So when someone shares the link of the product, the following information provided will be shown.

The users just need to share the product URL, and the rest of the data will be fetched automatically.

Facebook

Enter Open Graph Title, Description, and Image for the product. After proving the Open Graph information, the admin can view the live preview also.

Further, the admin can even provide Open Graph information for other language views too.

Twitter

Enter Twitter Card Title, Description, and Image for the product.

After proving the Twitter Card information, the admin can view the live preview also. The admin can provide Twitter Card information for other language views too.

Settings

Here, the admin can do product-wise SEO settings. The following options are available:

SEO for this product – Select Yes to enable SEO for the product, else select No.

Generate Canonical URL – Select Yes to create canonical URLs for the products, else select No.

Add Products to Sitemap.xml – Select Yes to include the product in the sitemap.

Ping on Update – Select Yes to submit the product URL on Pingomatic on product update.

SEO Meter

In this option, the admin can view the SEO analysis of the product. It will show the SEO Meter with Percentage.

The higher the percentage number, the better is the SEO. If the number is low, the admin can view the suggestions for improving the Product SEO level.

The store owner can add ALT text for images which will be notified in the Log section. ALT text for images helps the SEO meter to increase.

Meta Title must be unique otherwise it will show into the improvement section that “same product meta title founded for other products kindly change them.”

To create SEO URLs for manufacture pages, go to Catalog>Manufacturers. Select any page and click the Edit option.

Now go to the SEO URL field and enter the SEO URL. The admin can provide multi-language SEO URLs.

To create SEO URLs for information pages, go to Catalog>Information. Select any page and click the Edit option.

Now go to the Data tab, and enter the SEO URL. Moreover, the admin can provide multi-language SEO URLs.

Below is an example of how the product URL appears when the SEO URL is not used.

SEO URL

Now, the product URL is search engine friendly. This SEO URL will be helpful for the end-users and the search bots.

Moreover, even the end-users will be able to read it properly and search bots will index the page easily.

SEF Extension

At the end of the SEO URL, the admin has an option to provide an extension. The SEF Extension will appear after every SEO URLs of the store. Also, please view the below screenshot for reference.

SEF Keyword

This how a basic URL appears without using the extension.

With the help of the Advanced SEO extension, the URL becomes shorter and more readable.

The customer will also have the option to convert the website keywords into any respective language as desired.

Once the module is enabled, the customer will be able to select any language as shown in the image below.

Note: The Language selected from the “Google Language Select” will overwrite the default Language selection.

Change Language with URL

The customer can simply convert the store into any respective language just by adding the abbreviation after the URL.

For example, https://opencartdemo.webkul.com/advanced-seo/ is the URL so you can add the respective language keyword like ar for Arabic or en for English.

Note: Only those language will be converted by URL whose language is already added in the default Opencart.

Facebook Open Graph

When a user shares the product SEO URL on Facebook, it will appear as follows. With the help of Open Graph, the users just need to paste the URL of the product, As a result, the rest of the information will be grabbed automatically.

Twitter Card

Once a user shares a product URL on Twitter, As a result, the information about the product – image, title, description, will be fetched automatically.