Step By Step Guide to improve opencart SEO
The OpenCart SEO Extension provides various ways for improving the search engine ranking of a store. With this extension, the admin can create SEF (Search Engine Friendly) URLs on all the pages of the store.
Moreover, it can even provide SEO URLs for all languages in the store. With just one click generation, the admin can generate robots.txt and sitemap.xml files.
The Opencart SEO Extension uses JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) for the structured data. Thus Optimizing the SEO as JSON-LD is helpful for machine-readable data for search engines bot.
Further, the admin can add FAQ’s that will help viewers help fetch answers about basic queries and help improve the search engine ranking of the store simultaneously.
Watch the video tutorial below to understand the extension workflow:
Features
- Create SEO URLs for various pages of the store.
- One-click generation of Robots.txt and Sitemap.xml files.
- Add any SEO Extension for the URLs.
- The Store owner can even enable or disable Rich Snippets Status.
- Select which Rich Snippets to display or hide.
- Set the Frequency of the Sitemap web crawling.
- The customer will be able to redirect to the updated URL when direct to the last 3 updated SEF URLs.
- Error Notification to admin when the customer hits the wrong URL.
- Configure the priority of the web pages in a sitemap.
- Generate the sitemap automatically through a cron job.
- Select how to display the page modified date on the SERP.
- Automatic creation of Meta Title, Description, Keywords.
- View Product SEO Meter with suggestions to improve SEO level.
- Generate Canonical URLs for products.
- Create Facebook Open Graph and Twitter Cards for products.
- View Google Snippet Preview for desktop and mobile view.
- Provide separate SEO information for other language views.
- Within your admin account, ping popular search engines.
- In the admin configuration, view the ping success or error log.
- Set auto ping to your desired search engine for each product update or create it.
- Within your Opencart admin configuration, ping a specific URL.
- The admin can receive a 404 error log notification through the mail with the user IP and URL.
- Update Generate a sitemap if products or categories are saved by the admin.
- On the front-end, the admin may add an HTML sitemap feature.
- The meta title must be unique and it will display in the enhancement section that the same meta title of the products established for other products.
- The admin can access all kinds of great data about your search traffic from the various tools inside the Reports & Data section by using Bing Webmaster tool integration.
- Further, the admin can add FAQ’s that will help viewers help fetch answers about basic queries and help improve the search engine ranking of the store.
Language Translation
The module even supports multiple languages, please click here to read about Opencart language installation and translation.
Installation
Upload Folders
Firstly, extract the downloaded zip file. After that, open the correct Opencart Version Folder.
According to Opencart Version installed in your system. Then, upload admin, catalog, and wkseo folders to the Opencart root directory.
Upload XML
Now log in to the admin backend and navigate to Extensions > Extension Installer. Then click the Upload button and browse the XML file, this file is in the ocmod folder.
Please select the correct ocmod folder. According to your Opencart version installed in your system.
Then click on Continue after uploading the XML file.
Refresh Modifications
After uploading the XML file, please navigate through Extensions > Modifications. Now, click the Refresh button as visible in the screenshot.
Edit User Groups
After that, go to System>Users>Usergroups. And then, edit ‘Administrator’. Click Select All for both Access Permission and Modify Permission and Save it.
Module Installation
Now, navigate to Extensions>Modules. Find Advanced SEO from the list. Further, click the Install button as visible in the screenshot below.
Module Configuration
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.
FAQs
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.
Advanced SEO Settings
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.
Categories SEO
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.
Products SEO
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.
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.
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.”
Manufacturers SEO
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.
Information SEO
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.
User Front-End View
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.
Google Language Translation
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.
Social Media URL Share
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.
FAQs – Front End View
Here, is an image with added FAQ’s a customer can view these by clicking the FAQs button from the bottom of the web store page.
Thank you for viewing this blog. Further, if you have any query or need more information, please contact webkul.uvdesk.com