There are a number of modules available from the Prestashop store to improve and optimize your natural referencing on Prestashop. In this article, we'll take a look at 12 essential modules for your Prestashop SEO. By choosing the best SEO modules, you stay one step ahead of your competition by optimizing your website according to search engine standards and you'll boost your natural traffic.
A quick reminder: Before installing a search engine optimization (SEO) strategyyou must provide customized descriptions for your product and category pages. If you simply copy and paste your suppliers' descriptions, you're more likely to rank behind them!
1. Redirections module
A redirect is the redirection of a URL to a different URL. This is an indispensable practice when redesigning a website or correcting 404 errors. With a redirect, users and search engines are sent to a different URL from the one they originally requested. 301, 302 and 303 redirects are the most commonly used. It's perfectly normal and even recommended (in some cases) to redirect one URL to another. When doing so, it is essential to follow best practices in order to maintain SEO value.
The most frequent case: a URL that must redirect to another address at all times. We recommend 301 redirection in this case (better for users and search engines). This module allows you to create customized 301, 302 and 303 redirections.. This will help you avoid 404 errors, which are detrimental to your SEO. The module also lets you import a CSV file for mass redirection creation. Redirects can be applied to all types of pages (cms, category, product...). The redirection module is one of the best modules for your Prestashop site's SEO.
Be aware that when moving a page from one URL to another, search engines will take some time to discover the 301, recognize it and credit the new page with its predecessor's ranking and trust. This process may take longer if search engine spiders rarely visit the given web page, or if the new URL does not resolve correctly.
2. Advanced Search 5
Advanced Search 5 isn't just a faceted navigation module.
It allows you to create SEO pages based on specific criteria (category, attributes).. For example, you can easily create content pages by merging the {{brand}} + {{type of garment}} criteria: Lacoste Polo, Lacoste T-shirt... when creating new content pages, meta titles, meta descriptions, H1 and slum will be generated automatically. Pages can of course be indexed.
We highly recommend Advanced Search for your content and SEO strategy. The little extra: this module is compatible with Creative Elements.
➤ See the module on the Prestashop Marketplace addons
3. Google Sitemap module
The Sitemap is a file required to speed up the indexing of your website by search engines. This is essentially an XML file that lists all the products and pages in your online store. When search engines encounter this file, they can easily and efficiently crawl all the pages of the website. After that, the products on those pages are more likely to be displayed in search results when a user performs a search query. To create a sitemap in PrestaShop, you need to install and configure a special module called Google Sitemap. It's a tool that helps you create a map of your site and update it later. When configuring your site, we recommend that you do not include module pages, shopping cart pages, personal pages and order pages. What's more, you don't need to include service pages such as 404 in the sitemap.
Once you have checked all the checkboxes, you can start generating the file by clicking on the Generate a sitemap. After that, you'll receive the sitemap address. For example, this could be https://presta/1_index_sitemap.xml. Enter this URL in your Google Search Console account and in your robots.txt file. The module will tell you the size of the file and the number of pages listed. Don't forget to update the file regularly, so that search engines can fully index your site.
The last section of this module's configuration page contains the cron link. A good sitemap is one that is regularly updated. If you don't feel up to constantly pressing the Update sitemap button, you may want your server to do it for you. Create a cron job using this URL and forget about it. What's more, the module is free, so it would be a shame to miss out.
➤ See the module on the Prestashop Marketplace addons
4. Hreflang module
Essential Prestashop module for all multilingual Prestashop sites. The hreflang attribute (also known as rel="alternate " hreflang="x") tells Google which language you're using on a specific page, so that the search engine can provide this result to users searching in that language. The Prestashop Hreflang module is designed to help indexing robots understand that your website is multilingual, and in some cases avoid duplication of content. It provides essential country and language information. They help search engines to exchange the correct version of the page in the SERP according to the user's location and language preferences. The content presented to visitors will differ depending on where they come from.
➤ See the module on the Prestashop Marketplace addons
5. Image optimization - Webp
This Prestashop module aims to reduce the size of your png, jpeg or GIF images without impacting image quality. Improves the loading speed of your Prestashop sitewhich is a criterion for SEO. WebP is a modern image format that offers superior lossless and lossy compression for images on the Web. Using WebP, webmasters and web developers can create smaller, richer images that make websites faster.
WebP lossless images are 26 % smaller than PNG images. Some browsers, such as Safari, do not yet support Webp formats. In this case, images will appear in their original format. According to the HTTP Archive, images account for an average of 21 % of the total weight of a Web page, which is why they need to be optimized.
➤ See the module on the Prestashop Addons Marketplace
6. SEO Meta tags Managers module
Easily modify or generate SEO meta tags and image captions (ALT tags) based on flexible, configurable rules. This module provides a convenient way to manage SEO meta tags for your products, categories, CMS pages, manufacturers and suppliers. You can easily modify META tags online or fill them in automatically with just a few clicks.
The advanced user interface lets you make an appropriate selection of the resources required before generating meta tags. For example, you could select all products in the WOMEN category, manufactured by FABRICANT DE MODE, and modify/generate specific meta tags for this selection only.
➤ See the module on the Prestashop Addons Marketplace
7. Canonical module
Add Canonical link tags with the Prestashop SEO Canonical module to avoid content duplication. A canonical tag (aka "rel canonical") tells search engines that a specific URL is the master copy of another page. The use of this tag reduces the problem of content duplication. The canonical tag is particularly important for e-commerce sites with product variations.
The Canonical SEO module is a great way to improve the indexing of your links in Google. Remember, Google doesn't like duplicate content. Your crawl budget may be impacted if you have too much duplicate content. Google can waste time crawling multiple versions of the same page instead of discovering other important content on your website.
8. SEO images module (Alt tags)
Very easy-to-use and effective module. In just a few clicks, set ALT tag rules on all your product images automatically. For example, the default ALT tag might be: {{product name}} + {{category name}}.
Alt tags provide context to what an image displays, informing search engine spiders and enabling them to index an image correctly. However, alt tags not only help search engine spiders, but also not defining alt tags for your images can have a detrimental effect on the ranking of your web pages.
➤ See the module on the Prestashop Marketplace addons
9. Micro data module
One of its greatest advantages is its ease of installation. The module scans the entire file system for old microdata and replaces the affected files with new files containing the correct microdata (in JSON-LD format). Microdata is a coded and tagged language that helps search engines like Google, Yahoo! or Bing understand what's on a website through snippets that are placed in the code of a website.. The reason behind the use of microdata is a simple concept: semantic search. Search engines need to know the context in which you're looking for what you're looking for, in order to provide the best and most appropriate content.
This module adds and enhances the following microdata:
- Product page
- List of products
- Rich snippets
- Enriched store snippets through Trusted Shop
- Social networking with Open Graph
- Web page
- Website
➤ See the module on the Prestashop Marketplace addons
10. Content duplication (Noindex, Nofollow)
The SEO module NOindex, follow gives you the controls to get rid of duplicate content with the INDEX/NOINDEX and FOLLOW/NOFOLLOW options for each page. Now you don't need to use mass indexing for unnecessary pages in PrestaShop.
With this module, you can set the INDEX/NOINDEX and FOLLOW/NOFOLLOW options for each page separately in Prestashop. It lists all pages: Languages, CMS category pages, CMS pages, brands, suppliers, products to define these options. With no duplicate content in your store, it optimizes results for all search engines, resulting in higher rankings.
➤ See the module on the Prestashop Marketplace addons
11. FAQ module
We particularly like this FAQ module for its structured data tagging (in JSON-LD format). It allows for enriched data in search results. FAQs also represent high-quality, relevant content not only for your visitors, but also for search engines. Enriched FAQ pages can help you move up the search engine rankings!
12. Link obfuscation module
Disguise your less important links to improve the SEO of your main pages. This module lets youobfuscate any link and manipulate the way search engines see your page.
All Prestashop sites have less important pages such as: contact us, legal information, terms and conditions... which are linked throughout your store. Since these pages are linked throughout your site, search engines rank them highly. This means that your least important pages have more SEO strength than the others (loss of juice). It is therefore necessary to obfuscate them.
➤ See the module on the Prestashop Marketplace addons
Conclusion
We've just compiled a (non-exhaustive) list of the best SEO modules to use for a Prestashop site. Installing these modules will undoubtedly help you achieve significant results in terms of SEO. If you need help with configuration, or have any questions about how a module works, don't hesitate to contact our webmarketing experts.
