Shopware 6 can be an incredibly powerful E-commerce & shopping platform for your services and/or products. But especially with the current Shopware 6 you have to master all (SEO) basics properly before you can use the platform for your internet presence optimally.
Some of the things you need to pay attention to with Shopware SEO are:
- the URL structure (inconsistent by default)
- the pagination or the entirety of the page numbers (with which your categories etc. are provided - incorrectly implemented by default)
- the use of the robots noindex-tags
- the use of the robot nofollow-Attributes
In recent years, Shopware has become one of the main alternatives to Shopify and others E-commerce-Platforms o. Content-management systems such as WooCommerce developed.
Today's online community has evolved its vision of emotional and impulse purchases on any device. That's why a holistic and user-centric approach like Shopware 6 is the key to satisfying your potential customers.
Shopware is supported by an active community of developers that includes over 3,500 Plugins and hundreds of themes have developed for the CMS.
Your Shopware 6 SEO guide - master SEO in Shopware like a pro
The company founded around 2004 in Germany company has become one of the leading open source companies in the E-commerce-platform has developed. Purchasing customers generated sales totaling over 6 billion euros in 2018.
In Germany was Shopware from 2018 to 2022 even Market leaderbut the use and acceptance of the system is also growing rapidly outside Germany.
SEO settings in Shopware 6 - the theory behind them
Search engine crawlers, such as Google, regularly visit millions of websites and try to find as much high-quality content as possible. They try to find out what this content is about and whether it should be displayed in the search results.
But not all content is the same: some content is more popular and therefore deserves a higher position in the search results.
The 3 pillars of good search engine optimization in Shopware 6
1) Relevance & Keywords: For which search queries are your content and products actually relevant? Creating content and texts that are useful and satisfying for your visitors and (search engines) is essential in order to Onpage to score points. In order to Relevance However, good technology and the structure behind it are essential for clear communication.
2) Technical SEO & Structure: The technical foundation of a website that helps search engines find and understand your site as quickly and efficiently as possible. This is about setting you up for success and maximizing load times, Google Core Web Vitals and your technical usability.
3) Authority & Popularity: Links to your website, which determine your authority and trustworthiness, multiplied by the time you have been consistently on the market with your website, ultimately make up your authority in front of Google and co.
The Shopware 6 SEO URLs
With a standard Shopware 6 installation, the SEO URLs are automatically created based on an "SEO-.URL-Template". You can find these templates under Settings and then under SEO. There are templates for product detail pages, landing pages and category pages.
How to better control talking URLs
The default SEOURL-Product Detail Page Template
{{ product.translated.name }}/{ product.productNumber }}.
So a product with the name "Red Women's Handbag" with the SKU "12-DH03" would have this SEO-.URL get: /red-lady-handbag-12-dh03.
To customize templates for your store's URLs in Shopware, simply click on "Settings" in the menu on the left, then on "SEO".
Here you will find the SEOURL-templates for the respective sales channel. Shopware 6 makes it possible to create different templates for each sales channel. URL Templates to use.
Change preset templates in Shopware (6)
Instead of the preset template you can go to the Shopware Search engine optimization for example select the following template:
{{ product.manufacturer.name|lower }}/{ product.name|lower }}
This URL-structure then comes out of it:
my-e-commerce.en/manufacturer/productname
However, this template is only useful if the manufacturer and product name are concise and speaking. For smart SEO are meaningful names and talking URL-paths useful for rankings.
If several variants or sizes are used which have the same product name, the template cannot be used for the following reason ...
- Nike leather sneaker Buzz Air (size 41): my-e-commerce.com/nike/buzz-air
- Nike leather sneaker Buzz Air (size 42): my-e-commerce.com/nike/buzz-air
- Nike leather sneaker Buzz Air (size 43): my-e-commerce.com/nike/buzz-air
... so another parameter would have to be added here, which is the same for all product variants in the URL visible and for the Search Engine noticeably different.
In the end, each URL be, so to speak, unique in itself!
Simply illustrated, it means that this structure must herm here:
{{ product.manufacturer.name|lower }}/{ product.name|lower }}-{{ product.keywords|lower }}
- Nike leather sneaker Buzz Air (size 41): my-e-commerce.com/nike/buzz-air-41
- Nike leather sneaker Buzz Air (size 42): my-e-commerce.com/nike/buzz-air-42
- Nike leather sneaker Buzz Air (size 43): my-e-commerce.com/nike/buzz-air-43
Changing an SEO URL template in Shopware 6 & 301 redirects
After you have changed the template and started the indexer, you will notice that there are more URLs in the "seo_" table.url" are present. This is because Shopware uses the old URL to ensure that the URLs indexed by search engines continue to work. These are created by means of a 301 Redirects on the new URL redirected. When this happens, the "is_canonical" column in the "seo_" table is redirected.url" for the old URL is set to 0, while the "is_canonical" column for the new URL is set to 1. Here Shopware is still really "oldschool"!
But what if you don't want to change the old URLs when updating the template, but only want the new URLs to remain in the new template?
In this case you can change the column "is_modified" in the table "seo_url" to 1.
There is no quick way to do this in the admin area (unless you do it manually for all individual products), so just use the query (without quotes):
UPDATE "seo_url" SET "is_modified" = 1 WHERE "route_name" = 'frontend.detail.page'.
Canonical URLs in Shopware (6) - Setting canonical tags correctly
Canonical tags (i.e. main pages with potential "clones" with different URL) are a little different to manage in Shopware than in other CMS when it comes to products with variants ...
When you create a new product, you can choose a name ("Buzz Air") and an SEO URL ("buzz-air"). Then variants can be created:
For example, a white and a black version of the leather sneaker. These are then called "Buzz Air Black" ("buzz-air-black") and "Buzz Air White" ("buzz-air-white"), for example.
URL settings for blog articles in Shopware
If you want to use the Blogging-function in your Shopware store, you have to make sure that your blog articles have a good URL-structure. The field that contains the URL-structure of the blog article is the "blog template" for the SEO URLs, and it defaults to {sCategoryPath categoryID=$blogArticle.categoryId}/{$blogArticle.title} preset.
This leads to the following URL-Structure
"my-e-commerce.en/blog/category/article"
To add the trailing slash, simply change the value in the field to {sCategoryPath categoryID=$blogArticle.categoryId}/{$blogArticle.title}/
If you do not want to store your articles in a subfolder, you can change this by setting the value to {$blogArticle.title}/ adapts, which leads to a URL like
"my-e-commerce.de/blog/article" leads.
Important here: By default, blog article URLs don't have a trailing slash, while store pages do. This is inconsistent and you need to change it. A good, consistent URL-structure is important for SEO as well as for the User Experience important.
Settings for special campaign URLs - e.g. SSV or Black Week
Let's say you are running a summer sale campaign. You can create this campaign, for example, under Marketing → Shopping. The URL of the campaign is indicated by the field SEO URLs Landing Page Template and is set by default to {$campaign.name} is set. To add the slash at the end, you must enter the value with {$campaign.name}/ define. Shopware automatically transcribes special characters.
Shopware uses the Slugify framework (opens in a new tab) to rewrite special characters such as ö, ä and ü.
This is always true:
After you have URL-If you have changed the structure of your website, it is important to clear the cache and let Shopware regenerate all URLs. To clear the cache of your website, go to Configuration → Configuration → Cache. Cache/Performance and select Cache.
Tracking in Shopware: Google Analytics 4, Google Shopping & the Google Tag Manager
Tracking is simply one of the most important functions for your online store! Why is that?
Because you want and need to optimize your online presence in all areas in order not to get lost in the mass of competition. To do this, you need to study the behavior of your (potential) visitors.
What constitutes tracking at its core?
Various options can be used to show when your visitors leave your site or which of your actions they react particularly well to.
Behind these measurements is usually the intention to find out from which sources your visitors come to your online store.
You can use paid or free tools for this.
The most popular (SEO) tools are of course those from Google. Google has a market share of over 91.21 % in Germany. It is not surprising that this is where the most and most accurate data about your visitors comes in.
With smart tracking, you can find out whether your SEO measures really make sense and which devices, search engines or channels your visitors use to find your store.
Linking Google Analytics with Shopware
In Shopware 6 you will find the subdivision into so-called sales channels. For the integration of Google Analytics becomes No additional plug-in required. Shopware provides this function for you free of charge right from the start. If you have several stores or sales channels, you also need several properties for Google Analytics create. A property for every store!
This is how you proceed step by step:
First navigate to your preferred sales channel and click on "Analysis". There you can enter the tracking ID from your Google Analytics-account to establish the connection. Once you Google Analytics activated, the data transfer also begins.
Attention: Shopware is available with the pre-installed consent for Cookies is already compliant with the GDPR and the analysis data is only processed by Google Analytics if the corresponding Cookies also really be accepted.
You first need the Google Analytics tracking ID - this can be found in your Analytics account under Administration > Property > Tracking Information > Tracking Code. Then copy your ID including "UA-" and add them to the respective sales channel.
Activation of the e-commerce settings
Since you want to use the "Track orders" function in any case, you must then also use the E-commerce-Enable settings in Google Analytics.
As long as the function is not activated, the typical data for the online store - such as turnover or Conversion Rate - not in your Dashboard displayed.
Further conversion tracking with Shopware 6
In Shopware 6, only Google Analytics (4) can be integrated by default. If you want to collect additional conversion tracking data, you will need to use an external plug-in ...
We recommend linking your Shopware system with all common apps, such as Google Ads, Facebook, Pinterest & Microsoft Apps, by the way, the app "ALLinONE Conversion Tracking" by ditegra.
Tracking of social media channels under Shopware 6
All social media channels have their own pixels. However, as they all fulfill the same basic function, we will focus here on the best known and most commonly used pixel: Facebook.
If you install the Facebook pixel, you can track visitors to your store. In this way, the Facebook pixel can link the user behavior of users on your website with their Facebook profiles. Conversions can be tracked using the data from the Facebook pixel. This allows you to create more specific advertisements. It provides you with standard events that can be used for tracking. However, you can also create individual events, also known as "custom events".
You can use these events to track user behavior for these "events", for example:
- Leads
- Completed sales
- important page views
- transporting in the shopping cart
By the way: You can also connect the Facebook Pixel directly to the Google Tag Manager. here you will find an easy-to-use plug-in for implementing Facebook pixels in your Shopware 6 store.
Tracking with Google itself in Shopware (6)
To use Google's tools, you need your own Google account. It is advisable to create a separate Google account for your company anyway - this way your private interests are not mixed with your business interests.
Google Ads
Google Ads can help you with many things. We use it for conversion tracking. But what exactly does conversion tracking mean? Simply explained: Conversion tracking is the recording of what happens after a customer has interacted with your ad.
If you want to place paid ads on Google, conversion tracking helps you to track the performance of your ads. For Google Ads in your Shopware 6 E-commerce we can this extension highly recommend here!
Use the Google Search Console for your Shopware 6
The Google Search Console is not directly related to tracking - but SEO is! It helps you to measure your Google search traffic and fix any problems that arise. You can use the Search Console to analyze which search queries bring visitors to your store and thus further optimize your website.
You will also be informed of any problems with your website. So you can fix them as early as possible. From indexing to Crawling-Information. You can get all important information about your website via the URL-Check tool of the Search Console.
When registering, it is best to enter the prototype of the URL-prefix. After that, you need to confirm your ownership. For this purpose, Google provides you with a file. This file must be uploaded to the main Shopware folder. Upload the file and the Search Console setup is complete.
Use Google Analytics in Shopware 6
Like all Google tools, Google Analytics offers you unique insights from Google. You can link Analytics with Google's advertising and publisher products.
Here you will find a comprehensive plugin for your Shopware 6 e-commerce.
You always use Google Tag Manager in parallel with Google Analytics. The Google Tag Manager is important for Google Analytics. The Google Tag Manager is also useful if you are testing other tracking systems. This is because it means you have to Source code not adjust each time.
For more information on how to use Google Tag Manager, see the post below!
Conclusion on tracking
There are many different options and some plug-ins for tracking in Shopware. But you should always integrate plug-ins into the Backend of your website. Otherwise, the tracking results are unfortunately often wrong. Setting up tracking in D*a Shopware store can be tricky. You should always check with your Shopware Freelancer or your Agency stay in contact. This allows them to check the code behind the scenes.
Shopware: Set up Google Shopping and put your products in the best possible light
One of the most important digital marketing tools for companies is Google Shopping. It is an important tool for increasing the visibility of products and boosting online sales. One of the most popular E-commerce-The Shopware 6 platform discussed here, which enables companies to manage their online store even better.
With Shopware 6, companies can now also use Google Shopping to reach more customers and market their products. Here we would like to show you how to set up Google Shopping in Shopware 6.
1. create a Google Merchant Center-Account
The first thing you need to do Google Merchant Center-Create an account. This is an account that you can use to upload and manage your products in Google Shopping. You need to create a Google account to manage your Google Merchant Center-account.
2. upload your products one by one
As soon as you have your Google Merchant Center-account, you must upload your products. This can be done via a CSV file or via a API happen. If you use a CSV file, you must make sure that the column names meet the requirements of Google Shopping. You can find the correct column names in the Google Merchant Center help.
3. create a Google Ads - Formerly Google Adwords account
Next you need to create a Google Ads - formerly AdWords account. This is an account that you can use to create and manage your Google Shopping campaigns.
4. link your accounts
Once you have created your accounts, you need to link them. You can do this in your Google Merchant Center-account. Here you can link your Google AdWords account to manage your campaigns and market your products.
5. create your Google Shopping campaign
Now you can create your Google Shopping campaign. You need to set up the campaign with your budget, goals and keywords. Once you have created the campaign.
6. then link your store with Shopware 6
The last step is to link your store with Shopware 6. Here you can add your Google Merchant Center Set up a feed and upload your products to Google Shopping.
That's it! Now you can get started with Google Shopping in Shopware 6 and market your products. With the right strategy, you can effectively advertise your products in Google Shopping and increase your sales!
By the way: With this plug-in the integration of Google Shopping for your products in Shopware 6 is very easy!
Shopware & the Google Shopping Feed - how to make the most of your products & services
Important: There are various ways to transfer your product data to the Google Merchant Center to transmit. The simplest, but at the same time most impractical for large amounts of data is the manual upload of a .csv with all product data details for each individual product.
Notice: For growing e-commerces, where the offer and the pricing policy change from time to time, the manual variant is far too time-consuming and cost-intensive! You've already guessed it: we work with the Google Merchant Center and the Google Shopping Feed.
Why the Google Shopping Feed is so important for Shopware
Nowadays, online shopping and E-commerce is on the rise more than ever and a large part of its success lies in the right marketing. With the Google Shopping Feed store owners can advertise their products directly in the Google search engines.
In Shopware 6, we have a simple and powerful solution at hand to achieve this goal:
The Google Shopping Feed Plugin is an easy-to-use tool that allows store owners to list and promote their products in Google Shopping. With this plug-in, you can easily promote your products and increase the visibility of your store.
The plug-in allows you to publish a variety of product data, including name, description, category, price, image and much more. All this information is then converted into a standardized format so that it can be understood by Google Shopping:
So you can save yourself the manual configuration with these attributes - which you already know from Shopware 5:
- {strip}
- id{#S#}
- title{#S#}
- descripton{#S#}
- link{#S#}
- image_url{#S#}
- brand{#S#}
- price{#S#}
- currency{#S#}
- availability
- {/strip}{#L#}
- etc.
...
The plug-in also offers a range of other useful functions, such as the ability to update data in real time, automatically update products, work with the Google Merchant Center to link and much more.
It offers you a simple but powerful way to optimize your E-commerce and increase your sales. It's a simple and effective way to promote your store even better and reach more customers. If you want to take your store to the next level and increase your sales, you should consider the Google Shopping Feed plug-in a must-have!
Shopware & the Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a powerful tool that helps many webmasters and online retailers to manage and optimize their webshops. Shopware 6 now offers native support for GTM, which makes working with the tool much easier.
Google Tag Manager is a powerful tool that offers many different features. With GTM you can manage tags on your website to track and analyze specific actions on your website.
The following "events", for example, can be created and tracked with the Google Tag Manager:
- Clicks on buttons, links or other elements
- Time intervals and dwell time
- Content sharing
- Searches on your site
These are just a few examples. Event tracking can be used for many other events. Google Tag Manager also offers you a selection of dozens of tag types. Among other things, you can also integrate Hotjar, LinkedIn and Pinterest tags with Google Tag Manager.
You can also use the tool to monitor sales data and other important key figures. You can also use the tool to monitor the performance of your website and analyze user activity on your website.
Google Tag Manager is also extremely useful when it comes to increasing conversion rates. With the GTM, you can set up special tags on your website that help more visitors to convert on your website.
For example, you can retarget users who have viewed but not purchased a particular item on your website.
Tip: Here you will find an even more comprehensive and simpler tool for the Google Tag Manager in Shopware 6 as a plug-in!
These Shopware SEO plug-ins for your store make sense for you:
- All in One SEO
This all-in-one plugin offers you the most important and most frequently used SEO optimizations for products, categories and landing pages. - SEO text for category, sidebar and footer
This easy-to-install extension for your Shopware 6 can help you implement SEO textsn significantly easier - for:- SEO texts for homepage
- SEO texts for categories
- SEO texts for brand pages
- SEO text for blog categories
- SEO text for footer & header
- SEO redirects (301 and 302 redirects)
With the intuitive interface of this plug-in in the Backend you can easily manage your redirects and temporarily deactivate and activate them. With a CSV import function, you can upload existing lists of redirects from Excel directly into the plug-in, which can also be used to redirect existing URLs generated by Shopware to other subpages. The Shopware extension also allows you to create temporary redirects (302) to set up. - SEO Advanced (Rich Snippets, Analytics, Error Pages 404, etc.)
This shopware tool offers configurations & settings like Rich snippets for products, categories & Breadcrumbs You can also implement error pages (404), SEO URLs for categories, Universal Analytics & Conversion Tracking for Instagram etc.
One last tip: This Shopware 6 Theme is particularly suitable for your SEO-optimized online store!