Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of strategies to enhance the performance of websites, blogs, and web pages. The primary goal is to achieve higher rankings in organic search results, driving more traffic and boosting the site's authority.

In ecommerce, a well-implemented SEO strategy enhances visibility, attracts organic traffic, and improves user experience. By elevating search engine rankings, SEO provides a competitive edge, reduces customer acquisition costs, and ensures long-term results.

To learn more about SEO strategies, check Google’s documentation resource Explore Google Search documentation to improve your site's SEO.

VTEX offers a set of tools and settings that allow you to optimize your store for search engines, making your products more discoverable and improving site performance.

In this guide, you will learn some best practices for implementing strategies to improve SEO in your VTEX store. It is divided into general best practices applicable to all storefronts, followed by specific configurations for FastStore, Store Framework, and (Legacy) CMS Portal.

Properly configuring the elements of your ecommerce store, such as titles, descriptions, media, and URLs, can significantly impact how search engines index and rank your pages.

Titles and descriptions

When setting up your store, consider how title tags and descriptions affect your store’s SEO:

• Title tags: Use primary keywords at the beginning of the title and ensure titles are concise (50-60 characters). The value assigned to this tag is displayed at the top of the browser's title bar when someone visits your website. It can be configured for home, product, category, and brand pages.

• Meta descriptions: Include relevant keywords, limit them to 140-160 characters, and provide a compelling reason for users to click, which will help improve organic traffic. Meta descriptions are crucial for SEO because they appear in search engine results pages (SERPs) as snippets under the page title, giving users an idea of what they can find on the site. They can be configured for home, product, category, and brand pages on the same setup page where you configure the title tags directly in the VTEX Admin.

• Unique content: Avoid duplication across pages. Make sure titles and descriptions are unique for each page to improve search visibility and prevent keyword cannibalization, where multiple pages compete for the same search terms.

• Robots.txt: Edit or customize your robots.txt, which is a text file that search engines use to define site scanning rules for crawlers based on your business needs. Learn more in Google Search Console Tracking - robots.txt.

Images and videos

When adding images or videos to your store, whether for SKUs, banners, or any other page on your site, follow these guidelines:

• Media file name: Rename media files used in your store with descriptive keywords, avoiding generic names such as image1.png.
• alt text: Use clear alt text with relevant keywords to describe the media content accurately. Search engines don't read images and videos, so each media piece should have personalized alternative text (alt text). Moreover, the alt text promotes Accessibility by helping visually impaired users understand the content on the page.
• Image optimization: Compress images to improve page load speed without sacrificing quality. Learn more in Image compression.

URLs

When defining the URLs for your site, keep in mind the following best practices:

• Keyword-friendly URLs: Incorporate primary keywords into short, clean, and descriptive URLs. Use hyphens to separate words in URLs, enhancing readability and clarity for users and search engines. For product pages, the URL is defined by the textLink field in the product settings, as outlined in the guide Filling in the category registration fields.
• Canonical tags: Use canonical tags on your site to indicate the preferred version of a URL when there are multiple pages with similar content. This prevents duplicate content issues by consolidating ranking signals and ensuring search engines index the correct page. On VTEX, the canonical tag is generated automatically for all store pages, such as product, category, brand, and custom.

In cross-border stores, you must configure the canonical tag for each binding, as they have different canonical base addresses. For example: store.com/en and store.com/pt. Learn more in Cross-border store content internationalization.

Effective monitoring and analysis are crucial for understanding the impact of your SEO efforts and making data-driven decisions:

• Implement schema markup: Structured data (schema markup) helps search engines better understand the content and enhance rich snippets in search results. Learn more in Structured data through Google Search Console Data Markers.
• Track keyword rankings: Use tools such as Google Search Console to monitor the rankings of your target keywords over time and identify trends and fluctuations, which will help you understand what is working and where improvements are needed.
• Analyze website traffic: Use Google Analytics or your preferred tool to track organic traffic, page views, and user behavior on your site.
• Evaluate on-page performance: Analyze page load times, mobile usability, and overall user experience with tools such as PageSpeed Insights. Review on-page metrics such as bounce rate, time on page, and conversion rates to assess content effectiveness.

Learn more in Integration with monitoring tools.

For stores developed with FastStore, follow these specific practices:

• Configuration and setup: Configure fundamental SEO settings during the project onboarding and after in the discovery.config.js file. Learn more in SEO guide overview for FastStore.

• Canonical tags: Ensure canonical tags are correctly implemented on all pages, especially on Product Listing Pages (PLPs) that use URL parameters for functionality. Products accessible via multiple URLs must specify a canonical version to avoid duplicate content.

• Structured Data (Schema):

  • Use global identifiers like GTIN or UPC codes in your product schema. If catalog data is incomplete, you may need to customize the schema client-side.
  • Map the SEO title to the schema name field. Use the product name, not the SKU, if no SEO title is set.
  • Ensure the availability field accurately reflects stock status using standard Schema.org URLs (InStock, OutOfStock).
  • Enrich data with Manufacturer Part Numbers (MPN) to improve chances for rich results.
  • Remove deprecated Offer schema fields such as listPriceWithTaxes and priceWithTaxes.

• Performance and Crawlability:

  • Lazy Loading: Apply lazy loading strategically. Avoid using it on critical content sections of PLPs and PDPs to ensure search engine bots can crawl all content. Disabling it entirely can make all content immediately available for crawling, but it can also harm overall performance. Learn more in Optimizing SEO by managing lazy loading on PLPs and PDPs.
  • Caching: Use GET requests (not POST) for custom queries to improve caching, which benefits performance and SEO. Learn more in Configuring GraphQL cache control for GET requests.
  • Page Types: When building department pages, favor the Product List Page (PLP) template over a Landing Page (LP). PLPs support better caching and automate structured data for breadcrumbs.

• Core Web Vitals: Actively monitor and fix issues with Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) using tools like PageSpeed Insights.

• 404 Tracking: Implement custom title tags for 404 pages to easily identify and track them in analytics platforms.

For stores developed with Store Framework, follow these specific practices:

• Store SEO settings: Configure basic SEO settings for the home page through VTEX Admin by accessing Store Settings > Storefront > Store. Learn more in Configuring SEO in your Store Framework store.

• Intelligent Search for Categories: Use the VTEX Intelligent Search app to customize titles and meta descriptions for Department, Category, and Subcategory pages within the search navigation bar. Learn more in Intelligent Search.

• Product Listing Pages (PLP): Implement specific strategies to enhance the SEO of your category pages. Learn more in Improving the SEO of Product Listing Pages.

For stores using the (Legacy) CMS Portal, configure SEO settings as follows:

• Home page SEO: Configure the home page meta tag description and robots.txt file through Store Settings > Storefront > Settings in the VTEX Admin. Learn more in Settings.

• Meta tags control: Use the meta tags control feature to improve SEO on other pages (product, category, etc.). Learn more in How to use the meta tags control.

• Titles and URLs: Configure title tags and URLs for products, categories, and brands in their respective registration fields in the Admin:

  • Product registration fields
  • Category registration fields
  • Brand registration fields