Best OpenCart SEO Practices to Boost Your Online Store 2020

Here are the best OpenCart SEO practices to boost your online store. They can be applied for both OpenCart 3.x & OpenCart 2.x.

Best OpenCart SEO Practices to Boost Your Online Store

1. Minify / GZip the CSS, Javascript and Jquery Files

This is the most important part when optimize OpenCart that you need to minify CSS, Javascript and other files using GZip/ Enable GZIP Compression.

Firstly, go to: System -> Settings -> Edit -> Click the “Server” tab and set the “Output Compression Level” to between 4 and 6.

Secondly, rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess in your OpenCart directory.

Then, open the .htaccess file and add the following code underneath the ReWrite rules:

2. Enable Browser Caching

It's recommended to specify the browser to keep elements for 7 days before requesting everything again which should increase the load time considerably.

Note: Finish all development changes before enable browser caching because when you do this, it will be very difficult for development.

To enable browser caching, please copy these code lines to the .htaccess file:

3. Optimize Images / Image Size

The ideal size for each image is no more than 50kb. You can use free online image optimizer tools to reduce the image size or use the “Save for Web” tool in Photoshop to compress the image size. Besides, providing image width and height in the image tag will further help to efficiently load the page.

4. Optimize Every Page in Your OpenCart Store

Each page of your OpenCart site can be indexed and identified in search engines. By providing Meta Title, Meta Description and Meta keywords for every page, the search engine can easily gather your store data. Remember the rules: 70 characters for Title tags; 150-160 characters for Meta Descriptions and it’s better to use product keywords to them.

5. Optimize URL’s Structure

You need to make your OpenCart 3 site URL be shorter, meaningful and including product keywords.

The default OpenCart URL: http://opencart.opencartworks.com/themes/so_fshop/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=65

Optimize OpenCart Store URL:

• Go to System > Settings > Edit > tab Server > Set the SEO URL’s radio to “Yes” and save your settings.
• Go to your hosting control panel and rename the file .htaccess.txt to .htaccess
• Finally, you need to enter SEO keywords for every page, information, product and category you want to have URL rewrite.

6. Create a Robots.txt File

Robots.txt is a text file webmasters create to instruct web robots (typically search engine robots) how to crawl pages on their website. Creating a Robots.txt file for your OpenCart 3 online store will tell the search engines which pages of your OpenCart store should be indexed, which ones shouldn't.

7. Create XML Sitemap

A XML Sitemap can help the crawlers easier to see the complete structure of your site and efficiently retrieve it. That's why you should to create a new XML Sitemap (beside the default HTML sitemap) to get higher rank on search engines.

8. Reduce Server Response Time

The faster your site loads, the better ranking you get. You may consider optimizing database tables and implementing a caching solution to reduce this issue.

9. Use Clean OpenCart Themes

Choosing the right OpenCart themes will save your time, budget on optimizing your store. Now, almost theme providers has optimized their OpenCart 3 themes and OpenCart 2 themes with minimum design, clean code and powerful extension. You just need to choose the design you want.

10. Add Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the most freemium powerful web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. You will know what to do next to improve your website’s ranking.

In conclusion, by following these easy methods, you can significantly improve your OpenCart 3 & OpenCart 2 websites SEO. » Browse for more Best OpenCart Themes