Prestashop is possibly the most used cms – ecommerce in the world. It would be necessary to verify statistics due to the rivalry it maintains on a daily basis with Prestashop. If you still have not decided in the post Magento vs Prestashop are all the keys to choose one or the other.
In this article I want to focus specifically on Prestashop. It is a marvel of e-commerce. The problem is when we want to properly optimize our Online Store if we choose a default theme. That is why I have thought of writing a series of guidelines that we must take into account regarding the OnPage Optimization of our e-commerce to be able to do it in the best possible way.
No H1 tag on the front page.
The H1 tag is together with the title and the url the place where the main keyword should go, since it is one of the main key positioning factors.
It is one of the main errors with which the default Prestashop template comes out. If we visualize the source code and type crtl+f and search for “H1” we realize that the search field appears in red, because it does not exist. And is that the template that has by default this e-commerce and even many other payment do not have H1 tag on the front page.
The solution?
Include a text only on the front page with an if-else as high as possible, as close to the menu as possible.
{if $page_name == ‘index’} …{else} …{/if}
it would have to be placed in the header.tpl
Put H1 tag in Prestashop with the module Content Box
If we do not know programming we can pull creativity and picaresque. For this we have a module called contentbox. This module creates an html area in any Prestashop hook. In addition we can customize this module with our name. At the bottom of the page, right in the download area, click on “Generate your Module” (orange button next to the download), we put the name we want and a description. When we install the module it will appear with our own name and description. This is very useful when we want to use it in several occasions in our web, since we do not have to rename it by hand.
Example to place an h1 with content box:
- The first thing is to go to the link above and customize our own content box. We scroll down until we reach the end where the download area is located.
- Customize the module as shown in the image. Each one must have its own name and description.
- Install the module. To do so, click on add module, select the module you just downloaded from your computer, upload it and install it.
- Configure the module inside. If what we want is to put in the header a text as h1 so that it only appears on the front page, we will put the text with the H1 tag.
- Click on Module Positions. Now we must check if it has been installed automatically, since it is normal that it does not do it, although sometimes we can be surprised. If not, we will insert a new hook, select the module, tell it to insert it in Top of Pages and select all the options except “index”. With this we tell it that we only want it on the front page.
This way we already have our H1 tag on the front page.
H2 and H3 tags for prestashop.
The rest of tags in our E-commerce template we must also modify them, since by default the template puts as first h2 tag “Product successfully added to your shopping cart” and “There are 0 items in your cart”. We have to modify the blockcart.tpl module to change the h2 tags to h4.
In addition, ideally the structure should be as follows:
- Label h1 in the header (the one we have put with the module or manually)Label H2 as featured products (we take the opportunity to put a secondary keyword here)You have to put it in the homefeatured.tplAll titles of featured products as H3. Normally they already come in this form, but if they are not, put them in the productlist.tplH2 tag in the CMS area (Create with content box or whatever you want a new CMS area to include new h2 and under them some h3 with keywords)
ALT on all images in Prestashop
By default all the images that we add in the different forms in the CMS do not have ALT Alternative Title. However it is very easy to add them. In the theme configurator, where we add the banners that we will put on the front page, we complete the title of the banners and automatically the ALT title appears.
Large amount of text on the front page to improve SEO in Prestashop
It is essential that in order to rank properly, there is a large amount of text on the front page. This can be done with the CMS module (customization) that already comes by default on the front page, or add a new contentbox. In the latter way we can customize it as we wish.
Next – Preview Paginations.
This is a big problem that we must face when we are in front of a pagination system. And is that by default when we have a list of many products, page 2 successive has the same title as the first, and in 99% of cases Google detects it as duplicate content. To alleviate this we can do three things, although I advance that only one is correct.
- Put an excessively high number of products per page so that there can be no paginations.
- Put a rel=”canonical” from all other pages to the first page.
- Put some metalinks next – preview with a canonical to the current page.
I suppose that those who are familiar with SEO will already know which is the right answer. In the first case it is not bad, but the problem is that it increases excessively the loading speed of the web, so we discard it. The second case is used when the content displayed is identical to other content on the same website, such as a T-shirt that only changes the size. It is best to use the third option. In addition, Google has already issued a statement so that the second method is not used in the paginations, as it was not appropriate. In addition we have to take into account that we should always put the paginations as index, since with a noindex they would not be indexed in the Search Engine.
To carry out the third option (next – preview) we can do it in several ways (do not search the internet because there is almost no information about it, only a thread in a forum and it is incorrect). Next I am going to explain you the simplest way to do it:
- We edit the file Header.tpl
- On line 44 approx. just after <meta name=”apple-mobile-web-app-capable” content=”yes” /> we have to add the following code:
If you want to see the code it’s only going to cost you a social share.
The following code has been modified on 03/13/2016 and is the same code that is working on www.comprarfacil.com with version 1.6.0.5. It is a starting point for those of you who want to take this code and modify it and expose it. Those who modify it or upgrade to a newer version, send it to me and I will also put it below so we can all take advantage of it (GNU GPL license philosophy).
{if $start!=$stop}
And ready, in this simple way you will have your paginations properly.
Product attributes in Prestashop.
This is another critical point for SEO. When we have products that only differ in a size, a color, a package or something similar, such as T-shirts, or food cans… the best thing to do is to create attributes with each of the variations of the product. This way we will only have one content and automatically there will be a canonical from attribute 2 and 3 even from attribute 1 to the url of the main product. Here is a tutorial on how to properly create Products with Attributes in Prestashop.
Improve Prestashop loading speed.
The loading speed is a key factor to position a website – -Twittea – . And in an E-commerce is also crucial to achieve an ideal conversion. Therefore we must reduce to the maximum the loading time of the Online Store.
In Prestashop there is an option in Advanced Settings called Performance. The first thing to do is to configure the Smarty function, so that the template cache is enabled and never compile the template files.
In the CCC (Combination, Compression and Cache) section we must select the following:
- Smart Caching for CSS Style Sheets (Yes)
- Smart Caching for JS Code (yes)
- HTML content reduction (yes)
- JavaScripts Compression of HTML code (yes)
- Apache Optimization? (no need)
If we want to optimize Apache it would be ideal, but a priori the above configuration is the simplest to be able to perform any.
Legal pages as noindex / follow.
In most cases, the privacy policy, legal notice, terms and conditions, etc. have legal texts that are copied from other web pages or, without being copied, the text is the same as on other sites. Therefore it is best to put it as noidex, follow. This way we can tell Google not to index it but to follow the links on that site.
External nofollow and internal follow links
All internal links on the page must be Follow, because for Google an internal link set as nofollow is an error and therefore Google Bots will not consider it at all: as we saw in a lecture by Marcos Herrera in SEO Plus Google is passed by the bots ….
However, what we should take into consideration to put as nofollow are some external links, since each external link follow that is not placed strategically makes that part of the linkjuice leaves the web. That is why the most convenient is to put the links to social networks and others as nofollow.
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