Drive traffic to your online store

Hi, my name is Henry and I'm a Learning Designer at Wix.

In this course, we'll cover some important eCommerce features for launching your online business.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, can be one of the most important drivers of your site to success.

And in this lesson, we'll go through Wix's SEO Setup Checklist, which will help get your site pages optimized for organic traffic.

Let's jump in.

To access the SEO Setup Checklist from your dashboard, go down to "Marketing & SEO", then "SEO Tools".

Then go to "Get Found on Google".

Next, you're gonna click "Get Started".

Now you wanna put in your business or brand name, and make sure to use the name as it's currently written on your site.

Then go to "Next".

If you serve your customers face to face or within a local area, we'll include this info in your SEO Checklist to help your business get found in local search results.

Now, I do actually have one, so I'm going to go here, and add in my address.

Then hit "Next".

Now, choose the keywords that you wanna include in your checklist.

Think of words and phrases about 2-4 words long that your shoppers might type in the search to find your site.

And your keywords should naturally fit within your site's content and describe your business.

In my case, I'm selling urban-inspired streetwear, so I'm going to include the keywords "Streetwear", "Urban Clothing", and "Urban Streetwear".

And "Next".

I've linked to a video with more in-depth info on how to choose the right keywords for your business in the "Resources" tab.

After answering the initial questions, a personalized checklist will appear in your dashboard.

Now, in each task, under "Need more help?", you'll find additional resources and videos about each step.

Let's go over Step 1.

Now first off, you wanna set your homepage's title for search results.

Now, your title is your title tag, and that's the clickable headline that appears on search result pages.

Your title tag should be under 60 characters and should include the relevant keywords that you wanna rank for.

Now, Wix is gonna suggest title tag options with these best practices already built in, so you can select one and click "Apply", or you can create your own.

I'm gonna go with "Urban Streetwear NOUS San Francisco", and then "Apply".

Now do bear in mind that Google may not always display your title tags exactly as you set them.

Depending on the search terms that people use, Google's algorithm may display a different sentence or term to increase the relevancy of search results.

For more information on title tags, check out the video in the "Resources" tab.

Now add the homepage's description for search results.

Meta descriptions appear below your title tag on the search engine results page.

Now you wanna keep your meta description relevant, so about your business and the value it offers.

Concise, so between 50-160 characters.

And also incorporate keywords.

See, Google bolds keywords on the search results page which increases click-through rates.

I've already got one, and I'm gonna paste it in here.

So: "NOUS is a unisex streetwear clothing brand founded in California.

We're inspired by street style, influenced by fashion trends, and sustainability-focused".

And you can see that that checks off all of my description requirements, so I'll just hit "Apply".

Not it's time to update the text on your homepage.

This step will ensure that you've included at least one keyword, but including more than one as they fit naturally within your text, will help your site come up in search results.

So first of all, you wanna check that you have a keyword or your business or site name.

So here in my editor, I'm gonna scroll down, and you can see that I've added "NOUS" onto this strip, and down here I've added one of my keywords.

So now if I go back to my SEO Checklist, you'll see that that has been updated and it has been completed.

So next up, you wanna make sure that your homepage is visible in search results.

So the way you do that is you go to your homepage in the editor, go to "My Page Manager", and then click these three dots, go to "SEO Basics", and then down here decide "Let search engines index this page," and I just toggle this switch on.

I'm back to my SEO Checklist, you can see that that's been checked off.

And next you need to optimize your site for mobile devices.

So to do this, go back to your editor, and then go to the mobile view.

And down here, just click this, and then toggle "Enable Mobile Friendly" on.

And next you wanna connect your site to a custom domain.

If you've not already done so, you'll be prompted to connect here.

All you gotta do is hit "Connect domain", and after that you'll be asked to connect your site to Google Search Console.

Now, this step will help get your site listed and verified by Google.

See, our partnership with Google allows you to submit your homepage for fast indexing right here from your dashboard.

Whether or not you complete this step, Google will eventually find and index your site, but that could take a while.

By completing this step, you'll also get access to tools and reports that show what keywords people are searching for when finding your site, as well as measurements of your site's search traffic and performance on results pages.

And next, you wanna connect your site to Google Search Console.

So this step will get your site listed and verified by Google.

Our partnership with Google allows you to submit your homepage for fast indexing right here from your dashboard.

Whether or not you complete this step, Google will eventually find and index your site, but that could take a while.

So, by completing this step, you'll also get access to tools and reports that show what keywords people are searching for when finding your site, as well as measurements of your site's search traffic and performance on results pages.

Now that you've optimized your homepage in step 1, step 2 will take you through applying these same tasks to your other site pages.

You'll see a breakdown of your site pages here, along with recommended tasks for each page.

So you can set the page title, set the meta description, update the text, add contact details, and add internal links.

In step 3, you'll be invited to keep building your SEO progress.

So, you can check out the SEO guide for further steps and resources about how to boost your SEO.

Or you can hire a Wix SEO Partner, if at any point you'd like to connect with an SEO expert to help you with your store's SEO, so you can connect with a vetted professional on the Wix Marketplace.

All you gotta do is under "Hire a Wix SEO Partner", go to "Start Now".

For further tips about SEO, you can also take a look at the learning assets linked in the "Resources" tab.

Now keep in mind that completing the SEO Setup Checklist is just the beginning of your SEO journey.

It takes time and ongoing optimization until your site starts ranking for your keywords.

In our next lesson, we'll cover another essential step to kickstarting your store's SEO - setting the SEO defaults for your product pages.