Ecommerce
Odera Joseph
August 27, 2024

Ultimate Hack: How to Submit Your Shopify Blog RSS Feed to Google Search

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Every Shopify store owner knows the importance of driving traffic to their online store, and one of the most effective ways to do this is through consistent blogging.

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Blogging is one of the most powerful tools Shopify store owners can use to boost their visibility, attract more visitors, and drive sales. But creating great content is only part of the equation—getting that content indexed by search engines is just as important. In this guide, we’ll explore how blogging benefits Shopify stores, the role it plays in your SEO strategy, and how to supercharge your blog’s visibility by submitting its RSS feed to Google Search Console.

Why Blogging is Essential for Shopify Stores

For Shopify store owners, blogging is an underutilized yet highly effective way to increase traffic and sales. A well-maintained blog provides your customers with valuable content, positions your brand as an expert in your industry, and most importantly, improves your site’s search engine optimization (SEO). Blogging allows you to target relevant keywords, answer customer questions, and provide solutions that drive more organic traffic to your store.

Blog posts offer a way to engage visitors with helpful tips, guides, and industry insights. This builds trust with your audience, encouraging repeat visits and potentially higher conversion rates. Furthermore, blog content stays online indefinitely, continuing to draw traffic long after it’s been published.

But the value of blogging goes beyond just customer engagement—its biggest impact lies in the SEO benefits it brings to your store.

How Blogging Improves SEO for Your Shopify Store

A strategic blogging approach can be transformative for your Shopify store’s SEO performance. Here's how:

1. Keyword Optimization

Blogging allows you to target specific keywords related to your products, services, and industry. When potential customers search for these terms on Google, well-optimized blog posts increase the likelihood of your store showing up in search results. By writing about topics relevant to your target audience and incorporating keywords naturally into your content, your blog posts can help you capture a wider range of search queries.

2. Fresh Content Signals

Search engines like Google prioritize sites that are regularly updated with fresh content. Adding new blog posts to your Shopify site signals to Google that your site is active and continuously providing value to users. This is critical because Google’s algorithm favors websites that remain up-to-date, rewarding them with higher rankings.

3. Internal Linking

Blogs offer the perfect opportunity to interlink between your blog posts and product pages. This not only keeps readers engaged with more content on your site, but it also helps Google understand the structure of your website. Internal links guide search engines through your site, ensuring important pages (like product listings) are crawled and indexed efficiently.

4. Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords—specific phrases that users type into search engines—are easier to rank for and highly relevant to buyer intent. By writing blog posts around these long-tail keywords, you have a better chance of ranking for highly specific search queries that your customers might be asking. These phrases often reflect questions or niche topics, which you can target through blog content to capture relevant traffic.

The Role of Google Search Console in Your Blogging Strategy

Google Search Console is a free and essential tool that helps Shopify store owners monitor and maintain their site’s presence in Google Search results. It provides valuable insights into how your site is performing in search, highlighting issues that could be affecting your rankings and offering data on which keywords are driving traffic to your pages.

For bloggers, Google Search Console is particularly important because it helps you understand how your blog posts are performing. You can use it to track which blog posts are being indexed by Google, monitor traffic metrics, and even identify which search terms your posts are ranking for.

When you publish new blog content, it’s critical that Google indexes it quickly. Without proper indexing, your posts won’t appear in search results, rendering all your hard work invisible to potential customers. This is where submitting your blog’s RSS feed to Google Search Console can make a huge difference.

How RSS Feeds Help Google Index Your Blog Posts Faster

An RSS feed (Really Simple Syndication) is a dynamic file that automatically updates whenever you publish new content on your website. For your Shopify blog, the RSS feed acts as a real-time notification for Google, alerting it to new blog posts the moment they’re published. While Google will eventually discover new posts on its own through routine crawling, submitting your RSS feed ensures that Google is notified immediately, allowing it to index your content much faster.

When Google indexes your blog content faster, it appears in search results sooner, allowing you to capture more traffic. This is especially useful if you’re writing about time-sensitive topics, such as product launches, seasonal trends, or industry news, where being visible early in search results is critical.

The good news is that Shopify automatically generates an RSS feed for every blog you create, and all you need to do is submit this feed to Google Search Console.

How to Find Your Shopify Blog’s RSS Feed

Locating your Shopify blog’s RSS feed is easy. Shopify automatically creates an RSS feed for each blog, and you can access it using a simple URL format.

Here’s how to find your blog’s RSS feed:

  1. Start with your store’s URL. For example, let’s use the store Ecly Cosmetics as an example. If the blog URL is https://eclycosmetics.com/blogs/article, the corresponding RSS feed would be:
  2. https://eclycosmetics.com/blogs/article.atom
  3. The general formula is https://yourstore.myshopify.com/blogs/blogname.atom
  1. Replace "yourstore" with your actual store URL, and "blogname" with the specific blog’s name on Shopify. In our example, "article" is the blog’s name, so the RSS feed becomes https://eclycosmetics.com/blogs/article.atom.

This URL is your blog’s RSS feed, and now it’s ready for submission to Google Search Console.

Step-by-Step Guide to Submitting Your RSS Feed to Google Search Console

Now that you have your RSS feed URL, it’s time to submit it to Google Search Console. This step will ensure that Google is notified every time you publish new blog content, enabling faster indexing.

  1. Log in to Google Search Console
    Head over to Google Search Console and log in with your Google account. If you haven’t added your Shopify store to Search Console yet, you’ll need to do so by verifying your store’s domain. Google will guide you through adding a small snippet of code to your Shopify store to complete the verification process.
  2. Navigate to the Sitemaps Section
    Once your store is set up, go to the Sitemaps section in the left-hand menu. This is where you’ll submit your blog’s RSS feed URL.
  3. Submit Your RSS Feed URL
    In the "Add a new sitemap" field, enter your blog’s RSS feed URL. Using our example from Ecly Cosmetics, you would enter:
    https://eclycosmetics.com/blogs/article.atom
  4. After entering the feed URL, click Submit. Google will now begin crawling your RSS feed, indexing your new blog posts faster.
  5. Monitor the Submission
    After submission, Google Search Console will track the status of your RSS feed. If there are any errors (like a formatting issue), Search Console will notify you so you can make corrections. You can also monitor how well your blog posts are performing after they’ve been indexed.

SEO Benefits of Submitting Your RSS Feed to Google Search Console

The advantages of submitting your RSS feed to Google Search Console go beyond just faster indexing. Here’s how this tactic helps improve your blog’s overall SEO performance:

  • Immediate Visibility: When you submit your RSS feed, Google knows about your new blog posts right away, allowing them to appear in search results faster. This gives you a competitive edge, especially if your content is time-sensitive or focused on trending topics.
  • Improved Rankings: Google rewards fresh content, and by submitting your RSS feed, you signal to Google that your site is active and constantly updating. This can improve your blog’s chances of ranking higher in search results.
  • Enhanced Crawl Efficiency: With the RSS feed in place, Google’s crawlers can focus on new content rather than re-crawling old pages. This increases the efficiency of Google’s crawling process, ensuring your fresh posts are indexed quickly.
  • Increased Organic Traffic: As your blog posts get indexed faster, they start attracting traffic sooner. This leads to more page views and higher overall engagement with your content, ultimately boosting your site’s organic traffic.

Best Practices for Using RSS Feeds and SEO on Shopify

To maximize the benefits of submitting your RSS feed, it’s important to follow SEO best practices for your Shopify blog. Here are a few key strategies to keep in mind:

  • Optimize Blog Titles and Meta Descriptions: Every blog post should include keyword-rich titles and compelling meta descriptions. This helps Google understand the topic of your blog post and rank it for relevant search queries.
  • Use Internal Linking: Link your blog posts to relevant product pages or other blog content. Internal linking helps Google crawl your site more effectively and boosts the SEO of your internal pages.
  • Maintain a Consistent Blogging Schedule: Publishing blog posts regularly signals to Google that your site is active. Regularly updated content increases your chances of higher search rankings.
  • Optimize Images with Alt Text: Include descriptive alt text for all images in your blog posts. This not only improves accessibility but also helps Google understand the content of your images, further improving your SEO.

Leveraging Your Shopify Blog’s RSS Feed for SEO Success

Your Shopify blog is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal for driving traffic, increasing visibility, and boosting sales. By submitting your blog’s RSS feed to Google Search Console, you can accelerate the indexing process, ensuring your new blog posts appear in search results as quickly as possible. This small but effective Shopify hack can significantly enhance your blog’s SEO performance, bringing more organic traffic to your store and improving your overall search rankings.

When combined with strong SEO best practices like keyword optimization and internal linking, submitting your RSS feed can give your Shopify store the boost it needs to stand out in a competitive market.

Odera Joseph Echendu
Odera Joseph Echendu
Founder, Hawk Pixel Digital