The App Collective Episode 19
SEO for Shopify apps
Hello! The countdown officially begins to see many of you in real life in Toronto in three weeks. I’ve been talking to some of you for years online, and I can’t wait to see your animated characters moving around my world for two days.
What’s inside:
Music/Cultural interests
The new app listing layout
A special guest introduction
SEO for Shopify apps
Music/Cultural interests
Eminem dropped a masterpiece called Houdini, a throwback to “Without Me” - I am screaming! Gen Z is confused by Slim Shady. LMK if you want me to break it all down for you in the next episode cuz I will - gladly.
If you haven’t seen the video of Houdini yet, there are a TON of cameos in it. I won’t spoil it, but if you’ve come from an email, feel free to click on the Substack webpage and leave a comment listing everyone you recognize.
The new app listing layout
Leave it to Shopify to roll out a new app listing format while I’m preparing my workshop on ‘Optimizing your App Listing for Growth’ at Editions lol but luckily the new look is looking spiffy.
This new look feels a lot more organized in my brain and benefits apps that have a few things going for them such as:
a strong rating at 4.7 or above
an app that has been around for a few years or more especially in a crowded category
the changelog of features and bug fixes available in the app listing
integrations with other tools
I’m excited to see how this impacts performance/installs. If *only* we could get more insights into that (ie heat maps and session recordings) lol on the actual app listing page but I won’t digress back into last week’s topic.
Special guest
We have another fascinating episode this week with an exceptional guest. Please welcome Josh Highland, co-founder and CEO of Venntov, the Shopify app company building apps since 2012.
I first met Josh in 2014 in San Francisco during the 1st Shopify Unite at a local Thai restaurant.
Josh is well known for his commitment to Shopify, not only because of the three apps he built and operates or because he was one of the first to build an app on Shopify, but also because of his Shopify logo tattoo. It was famously called out at one of the first Shopify Unite partner conferences.
He is truly a genius when it comes to many things—SEO being one of them. If you’re not following him on X and you’re into building things, from apps to 3D-printed robots, I would suggest you do that now!
I’m going to hand this episode over to Josh now to discuss SEO for Shopify apps from information leaked by Google.
SEO for Shopify Apps
Hi, I’m Josh. SEO is a constantly evolving subject. Google adjusts its search algorithms daily. Last week, 2,500 pages of internal Google Search documents were leaked to the public. The documents show that Google considers 14,000+ factors when ranking a site! That's a mind-boggling list of things, but the reality is that there are a few things that you can focus on that will help you rank above your competition.
The biggest takeaway from the document leak is this - Please your users, not the algorithms.
Engagement matters! We can verify that Google takes into account the amount of time a user spends on a page, how many pages they view in a session, and whether they visit your site again. The documents also suggest (but do not confirm) that Google looks at the behavior of Chrome browsers to gather more of this information.
Regularly writing helpful content and getting people to link to those pages is still a major factor in establishing trustworthiness and authority. We have learned that Google considers the totality of your site's content, not just a few stand-out pages. We have known for a long time that the quality of sites linking to your content matters more than the quantity. The Google leak verifies this.
The Google leak also showed us that social media and the author of the content do, in fact, play a ranking factor. You have a product/app or service for a reason—experience in that field. Share your knowledge, help people, and show Google you deserve your place at the top.
So now you have some great content and a social following around your field. If your site is slow and has issues, it's not going to rank well. Google has been telling us for years to tune our sites to meet their "Core Web Vitals" scores, and the document leak affirms that as a ranking factor. In layman's terms, "Make your site hella fast to rank better."
If you are an app developer going for the "Build for Shopify" badge, you know that meeting the Core Web Vital performance standards is not an easy task. Once you understand what needs to be done, it's easier to dramatically improve your score with simple edits (image formats, preloading files, CDNs, etc.). Speed and performance matter more than ever if you are working on your marketing site, a merchant's site, or your app.
SEO is still a long game with no shortcuts. It's a marathon not a sprint, but every little step counts and gets you closer to the goal. The user experience will always be a top ranking factor. Keep users in mind as you build content / products / apps.
To check out and learn more about SEO Manager by Venntov, go to the app listing here.
There's so much more I can say about Josh. I'm over here feeling so much nostalgia for the ten years of admiring him and his business partner Rhian Beutler. You'll be hearing from Rhian in the future, too.
Okay, well I hope you enjoyed today's episode as much as I enjoyed collab'ing with Josh.
Until next week,
Deb