Explain the SEO strategy utilizing AHREFS x SHOPIFY!

You started selling E-commerce products on Shopify, but you want more people to see your store! Your shop's search ranking is too low! But you don’t know what to do. Are you facing these kinds of challenges?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an essential element for online business. Especially when using an e-commerce platform like Shopify, utilizing SEO tools such as Ahrefs can help your business grow!

In this article,We’ll introduce effective SEO strategies using a combination of Shopify and Ahrefs.

By utilizing Ahrefs in your Shopify settings, you can strengthen your store’s SEO strategy and improve your ranking in search engines.

Ahrefs is a SaaS company that provides SEO tools and is headquartered in Singapore. They currently operate offices in 22 locations worldwide and have a team of over 100 people.

Currently, services are also offered in Japanese, with Full Speed Inc. acting as the official partner providing these services in Japan.

https://ahrefs.jp/

As of March 2024, the pricing is as follows: ¥12,500–¥125,000 per month.

Updated November 2024

The official Ahrefs Japan X account provides information in Japanese.

Additionally, the help center now offers chat support in Japanese.

We are a company that excels particularly in backlink analysis for SEO services.

We also offer a blog in Japanese, and our most popular article is ranked number one.

How to Check Backlinks: 8 Free and Paid Backlink Checker Tools

This is the current situation.

In addition to that,

What is Ahrefs’ Domain Rating (DR)?

There are also official articles about other features.

For SEO, it’s essential to first analyze the current state of your site and domain. Here, we’ll go over the main features of Ahrefs that are useful for this purpose.

When you log in to Ahrefs, a menu is displayed in the top navigation bar. (Currently, the menu is also available in Japanese, but since the company has clients around the world, the language settings may be changed depending on the situation.)

From the left,

1. Dashboard
2. Site Explorer
3. Keywords Explorer
4. Site Audit
5. Rank Tracker
6. Content Explorer
7. Web Explorer
8. Competitive Analysis

Here, I’d like to introduce the features that are most commonly used for SEO measures on Shopify.

From the left,

1. Domain Rating
2. Referring Domain
3. Backlink
4. Organic Traffic
5. Organic Keywords

is what it is now.

1. Domain Rating
This is Ahrefs' evaluation score for domains. For details on the calculation method, see the official explanation here.

as described there.

The higher the DR, the more “link juice” is passed to the destination domain. The source domain distributes its evaluation to all the domains it links to, not just one. In other words, a DR 10 domain linking to three domains can potentially have more impact on DR than a DR 80 domain linking to a million domains.

2. Referring Domain 

This is the number of domains that refer to (i.e., link to) the target URL.

3. Backlinks 

This is the number of backlinks.

4. Organic Traffic 

This is the estimated monthly traffic. The estimated value is based on the official Ahrefs blog, so it may differ from the numbers in Google Analytics.

1. Find all the keywords for which the target ranks in the top 100 organic search results.
2. Estimate how much traffic the target gets from each keyword based on its ranking position and the estimated CTR for that position.
3. Add up all these numbers.

5. Organic Keywords

The total number of keywords for which the target website, subsection, or URL is ranked in the top 100 organic search results on Google across all countries registered in the Ahrefs database.

Official blog is here:
What are organic keywords?

One of the strengths of Ahrefs is that you can check the number of keywords ranked by country. This is especially useful for cross-border e-commerce, as you can filter the target countries or view data for all countries as needed.

Even if keywords have the same meaning, their tendencies can differ if the language is different, so being able to filter and check the number of keywords ranked in each country is a very useful feature for cross-border EC.

Now that you understand what a dashboard looks like, let's take a look at how you can utilize Hrefs in Shopify.

By using Ahrefs' Site Explorer, you can dive deeper into your competitors' websites.

With Ahrefs, you can check a variety of competitor information, such as backlink profiles, keyword strategies, and content strategies.

You can learn from your competitors' successes, which helps you identify areas for improvement and discover new strategies for your own website.

By analyzing which keywords are driving traffic to your site and which keywords are driving traffic to your competitors, you can use this information to improve your store's sales.

By using Ahrefs' Site Audit tool, you can identify and fix internal linking issues.

Optimizing the internal link structure within your Shopify store allows search engines to more effectively crawl important pages on your website, which improves your site's overall quality rating.

By increasing your site's evaluation from search engines, you can expect to appear higher in search results.

You can also transfer link equity from pages with many backlinks to those with fewer, such as transaction pages (like product pages in EC), thereby increasing their authority.

To improve your internal link structure, understand that links placed higher on a page are rated more highly, and that you can transfer link equity from pages with many backlinks to those with fewer by specifying the target location of the link. By implementing these specific strategies, you can achieve improvements.

For more details, here's a blog about internal linking strategies recommended by HREFS.

Why SEO Should Prioritize Internal Linking Strategies

Keyword research and content strategy are extremely important elements in online business SEO strategies. Let’s take a closer look at each of these methods!

Keyword research is the process of identifying search keywords related to your store’s industry and products, and evaluating the search volume and competitiveness of those keywords. By using Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer, you can effectively conduct keyword research with the following steps.

• Identifying Related Keywords: Search for keywords related to the products you sell in your store using Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer. This helps you understand which keywords potential customers might use when searching.

Example of a Keyword Report

Top-ranking keywords are displayed from the candidate report for each keyword.

• Evaluating Search Volume and Competitiveness: Select keywords that are frequently searched but have relatively low competition. Use Ahrefs’ tools to analyze the search volume and competitiveness of each keyword, and choose the best ones.

For example, the search volume for the keyword 'how to gain muscle' in the United States is 16K = 16,000 searches.

Keyword Difficulty: 66

It is estimated that you would need backlinks from 167 sites to rank in the top 10.

For more details, please see below.

How to Use Ahrefs: How to Use the Keyword Explorer Overview Report

Let's utilize the keywords you selected earlier to provide the information users are looking for. Specifically, you can take the following approaches:

• Identifying Popular Topics: By using Ahrefs' Content Explorer, you can identify trending and popular topics related to the store's products. This allows you to pinpoint topics that are likely to attract readers' interest.

• Creating Blog Articles: Based on the popular topics and trends you've identified, create blog articles. It's important to appropriately incorporate the selected keywords into the content and provide information that users will find useful.

By thoroughly analyzing the store and providing content that aligns with users' interests, you can expect to improve your search engine rankings, as your site will be judged as high-quality.

The goal of a backlink strategy is to obtain links from other websites to your own. This improves your search engine credibility and rankings, increasing your online business’s visibility and trustworthiness.

Now, let’s dive into the details of backlink strategies!

• Using Ahrefs’ Backlink Profile: By utilizing Ahrefs’ backlink profile, you can find opportunities for backlinks from websites related to your industry or products. This tool also allows you to analyze competitors’ backlink strategies and identify potential sites that could strengthen your own store’s backlink profile.

• Outreach to Websites: Reach out to highly relevant websites to promote your company’s products or content. When other websites link to your content, you gain backlinks, which can help improve your search engine rankings.

That said, since the backlinks are being introduced by competitors, it's a bit risky to exchange backlinks with my own store as well. You can also acquire backlinks using the following methods.

• Sharing Shopify Content: By sharing Shopify store products or blog articles on social media or blogging platforms, you can naturally acquire backlinks. You can also expect that administrators or users of other websites who are interested in your content will voluntarily post links to it.

• Monitoring and Adjusting Backlinks: Use Ahrefs' backlink tracker to monitor the status of the backlinks you acquire. If your content is shared on unsecured sites, those backlinks may be judged as harmful and could negatively impact your site's reputation. In such cases, reject or remove those backlinks as needed.

Ahrefs is,on Shopifyan effective and powerful tool to help grow your online business!

A comprehensive SEO strategy that combines tools such as competitor analysis, keyword research, and backlink strategies can help improve your search engine rankings and increase organic traffic. By regularly monitoring and optimizing your strategy, make the most of Shopify and Ahrefs to work toward online business success!

If you want to know the current status of your site or think there might be more areas for improvement, feel free to consult with GORIDE!