Are keywords in Shopify SEO apps worthless?

You can’t talk about Shopify SEO without running into keywords.

Many Shopify SEO apps tout keywords as a magical feature they have.

Unfortunately, the impact Shopify apps can have on keywords is probably misplaced.

Entering SEO keywords into any Shopify app doesn’t really have much impact, if any at all.

What most apps will do is just check if a Page/Product/Blog Post has those words listed. It’s like a very weak SEO audit.

"Does this page have the keyword somewhere? Yes"

"Does this page have the keyword somewhere? Yes"

"Does this page have the keyword somewhere? No. RED ALERT "

Sure this feature is slightly useful but in most cases they are just a glorified system to keep track of which keywords you want your store rank for at a specific url.

A spreadsheet can do the same thing.

(And if you add a bit of JavaScript code to Google Sheet, it can check your store for you automatically)

The apps don’t actually help you rank for those keywords at all.

You have to have content using that keyword and links to rank.

If the app helps remind you to enter the keyword into the product description, great. It was useful. But the app itself didn’t do the actual work.

And all of this is moot if you don’t take the time to research and enter the keywords into the app.

One SEO feature that actually works is structured data.

Mostly because Google wants everyone to set it up so their jobs are easier.

You can either audit, code, and test your store’s structured data by hand or install JSON-LD for SEO and have all the structured data you need.

It’s already helping over a thousand Shopify stores with their structured data and it could help you too.