SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is both a fine art and simple common sense. It can be a trial and error practice for some business owners as each business and website is different – and owners of each site may set-up their sites differently.
Reading the extensive information written by our Forum moderator below will help you apply proper SEO to your entire ShopFactory website.

By following the basic guidelines and making full use of the SEO capabilities in ShopFactory - you can eliminate the trial and error to get your website indexed and properly ranked on the search engines.
There are a lot of 'myths' about doing proper SEO which can lead to confusion. Over the years we have all read or been told misleading information about SEO. To clearly explain what SEO is:

Many people misconstrue the differences between the terms “SEO-Search Engine Optimization”
and “Search Engine Marketing”. There is a distinct difference: SEO is just a part of “Search
Engine Marketing (SEM)”.

SEO is the process of improving visibility based on the content on your website – this includes department pages, articles and products. SEO is specifically up to the end-user of ShopFactory to build their site with SEO content in mind. SEO’ing your site takes into account: your page content including – text, meta-tags, images, alt. tags on images, and file names – and how these are arranged on each of your pages, and through-out your site.

Also, having a "Search Engine Friendly" website is something you do not need to worry about. ShopFactory has been designed with SEO in mind. ShopFactory takes care of the HTML code and the cataloguing of your pages (using a self generated sitemap.xml file – which you submit to each search engine). It includes all the functions you need to be able to reach higher rankings on Search Engines. It is important to note: due to regular changes in search engine algorithms - NO ONE can guarantee ranking placement for searches on search engines.

You can subscribe to our SEO Tools app service so you can update and correct issues found in your ShopFactory SEO service reports. The best way to improve rankings is to improve the content of your site.

1. SEO for Pages - (department pages and article pages (this may include topic knowledge based articles, newsletters, and other reference pages you use as landing or doorway pages.)
2. SEO for Products - (These two topics are distinctly different due to recent search engine changes and will yield different results depending on your specific business.)

Keep this in mind:
• YOU MUST SEO EVERY PAGE and every product on your site to yield the best results!!! Every page and product on your site is a potential landing page to draw traffic into your site.
• The more pages you have properly SEO’d, the more interesting you are to the search engine. If you leave pages un-SEO’d, it can affect your ranking.
• How long your site has been actively online. Search Engines take their own time – patience and time is essential and beyond your control where Search Engines are concerned.
• How much competition you have affects your ranking.
• How “related” each page is on your site to your main keywords and content.
• Regional and Language Searches can make a difference, i.e. There are regional engines: Google.co.uk, Google.fr, Google.nl, Google.au, etc. – you may end up ranking high on any of these, but low on Google.com depending on your location / scope of business.
• How many links to your site affects your rank – you can work on building back-links to your site naturally over time. 

Your online shop may not have enough text content used across the whole of your site. Both department and product pages must have good textual content.

To subscribe to ShopFactory SEO Tools app, simply enable the APP service in your account.

Enable the SEO Tools app in your ShopFactory account

- Open your shop in ShopFactory
- At the left-tree menu, click on ShopFactory Central page
- At the right-most column, click on "App Store" button to connect to the SF Cloud backend interface
- Select "SEO Tools" to signup to our SEO app service, https://app.santu.com/buynow/plan/extraservice
- Click on the "Add App" button

One of our in-house SEO experts will setup your SEO Tools account and contact you with more information. You will get a manual & instructions for your ShopFactory SEO Tools and you can get training and services as required from our in-house SEO experts to:

1: Remove errors from your web pages to rank better

2: Find the best keywords for your website

3: Optimize your web pages for relevant keywords 

4: Analyze the links that point to your site

5: Improve the links that point to your site 

6: Check your rankings on Google, Google Mobile, Bing and Yahoo

7: Monitor the uptime of your website 

8: Analyze the Google Ads campaigns of your competitors

9: Analyze the SEO campaigns of your competitors 

10: Analyze social media

11: Analyze your website visitors 

12: Create impressive reports

SEO Merchant Services – What next, once your SEO Report Service is set-up

When you sign up for ShopFactory SEO Reporting Service, you will first receive an email from our sales department asking for vital information.

You can respond to that email, and include the information requested so your SEO Reporting Service can be set-up.

With-in a few hours, once your account is set-up, you will receive an email with your login information so you can access your online SEO Reporting Service.

The email will include the link to our SEO Report Service and credentials:

Report Login Location: https://www.shopfactory.com/seotools/

Domain:  XXXXXXX

Password:  XXXXXXX

You will also receive two guides:

1) SEO Guide – Guide for best SEO practices for your website.
2) ShopFactory SEO User Manual – For using the reporting services.

We also offer SEO consultations and our SEO Experts can review your site to provide specific help and instructions on updating your site for new ranking standards, and what you may need to address on your website.

Contact our sales department for a quote and to order