Most Shopify sites I audit have the same handful of problems baked in from day one. The owner picked a theme, uploaded products, started running ads, and never touched a single SEO setting.
Six months later they’re wondering why Google has indexed barely half their catalogue and why the pages that are indexed sit on page three. A proper ecommerce SEO checklist fixes that by front-loading the configuration that compounds over time. Having audited SEO setups across well over a hundred Shopify shops, the difference between a shop that ranks within three months and one that’s still invisible after a year almost always traces back to the first fortnight of setup decisions.
If you’d rather have someone handle this properly from the start, our Shopify SEO service covers the full technical foundation and ongoing optimisation.
Quick-Reference Shopify SEO Checklist
Use this as your master list when launching a new shop or auditing an existing one. Each item is explained in full below.
Foundation Settings
- Google Search Console connected and sitemap submitted
- Google Analytics 4 installed with ecommerce tracking
- Primary domain selected with redirects configured
- SSL certificate active and HTTPS enforced
Technical SEO
- Site speed tested and Core Web Vitals passing
- Logical site architecture with shallow navigation
- Clean URLs using keywords appropriately
- XML sitemap monitored for indexing errors
Product Pages
- Each product has a keyword-focused title under 60 characters
- Product descriptions over 200 words with natural keyword use
- All images carry descriptive alt text
- Product schema validated via Rich Results Test
Collection Pages
- Collections target commercial category keywords
- Collection descriptions included with primary keyword in first 100 words
- Filter URLs selectively indexed for high-volume combinations
Content and Links
- Blog publishing schedule established
- Internal linking connects products, collections, and blog posts
Set Up Your SEO Foundation
These settings affect every page on the site. Getting them wrong is a problem that gets harder to unpick the longer the shop has been live, so sort them before adding products.
Connect Google Search Console and Google Analytics
Google Search Console is where you’ll see which queries bring people to your shop, what your average positions look like, and whether Google is having trouble crawling anything.
Verify your domain using the DNS method, which proves ownership of the entire domain rather than a single URL.
Once verified, submit your sitemap. Shopify generates one automatically at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. Pop that URL into the Sitemaps section and you’re sorted.
For GA4, Shopify retired its old native integration in favour of the Google & YouTube app. Install it from the Shopify App Store, connect your Google account, and the app links your GA4 property without you touching code.
Ecommerce events like product views, add-to-cart clicks, and completed purchases track automatically. You don’t need Google Merchant Center unless you’re planning Shopping ads.
Choose Your Primary Domain
Every Shopify shop is reachable through multiple URLs by default: the myshopify.com subdomain, your custom domain with www, and without. Google treats each as a separate site, splitting whatever authority you build across three addresses.
Go to Settings > Domains and pick your primary.
Shopify handles the redirects automatically.
If you’re migrating from another platform, set up URL redirects for every page that existed on the old site under Online Store > Navigation > URL Redirects. Miss this step and every backlink pointing at your old URLs sends visitors to a dead page. That’s a proper waste of whatever link equity you’ve built.
Confirm SSL Is Active
Shopify gives every shop a free SSL certificate. Check under Settings > Domains to confirm it’s on. Google has used HTTPS as a ranking signal since 2014, and there’s nothing to configure beyond checking the box.
Technical SEO Configuration
Technical SEO is the plumbing. If the crawl is broken, nothing else matters because Google can’t see the pages you’ve spent time optimising. We see this constantly at our Manchester office when new clients come in with shops that have been live for months but barely show up in Search Console.
Site Speed and Core Web Vitals
Speed is one of the few ranking factors Google has publicly confirmed, and it has a direct line to turnover. A Deloitte study commissioned by Google found that just a 0.1-second improvement in mobile load time lifted ecommerce conversions by 8.4% across the retail sites they analysed.
Shopify is reasonable on the server side, but your theme and apps can undo that in a hurry. Run your shop through Google PageSpeed Insights to get a baseline, then focus on these Core Web Vitals:
| Metric | What It Measures | Target |
|---|---|---|
| LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) | Loading performance | Under 2.5 seconds |
| INP (Interaction to Next Paint) | Interactivity | Under 200 milliseconds |
| CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) | Visual stability | Under 0.1 |
Apps are the biggest speed killer on Shopify. Each one loads its own JavaScript that has to execute before the page becomes interactive. I’ve seen shops with 15+ installed apps where removing four unused ones dropped LCP by over a second. Audit your app list quarterly and bin anything you’re not actively using.
If you’re still on an older theme like Debut or Brooklyn, switching to Dawn (Shopify’s default since Online Store 2.0) can make a noticeable difference on its own.
Site Architecture
Your shop’s structure tells Google which pages carry the most weight. The goal is a shallow architecture where important pages sit within two or three clicks of the homepage.
Organise products into collections that match the way people actually search. A customer after running shoes might search by brand, by gender, or by feature like cushioning level. Your collection structure should reflect those patterns, not your internal stock categories.
Keep the main navigation focused on primary collections with dropdown menus for subcollections, and avoid nesting more than two levels deep.
URL Structure
Shopify gives you limited control over URLs compared to WooCommerce. Products always sit under /products/ and collections under /collections/, and you can’t change those prefixes. What you can edit is the slug, and that’s where your keyword goes.
Keep slugs tight: /products/mens-leather-chelsea-boots-black is far more useful than /products/product-12847.
One Shopify-specific trap worth knowing: products accessed through a collection get a second URL at /collections/collection-name/products/product-name. Shopify handles this with canonical tags pointing back to the primary /products/ URL, but check in Search Console that Google is respecting those canonicals. If the duplicate version is getting indexed, you’ve got a problem worth sorting.
XML Sitemap Monitoring
Your sitemap updates automatically, but the bit most people skip is monitoring it.
In Search Console, check the Pages report regularly. You’re looking for the gap between pages Google has discovered and pages it has actually indexed.
A large gap usually points to one of three issues:
- Pages blocked by robots.txt that shouldn’t be
- Redirect chains that confuse crawlers
- Pages stuck in ‘Discovered, currently not indexed’ status, which is common on new Shopify shops and usually means those pages need more internal links or better content
Product Page Optimisation
Product pages are where organic search traffic turns into sales. Every element sends signals to both Google and your visitors, so getting the details right pays off twice.
Product Titles
Your product title appears in search results, browser tabs, and social shares. Front-load the most important terms because Google truncates anything beyond roughly 60 characters. Each product needs its own distinct primary keyword too. If you sell five similar items, differentiate through colour, material, or size.
A solid title follows a clear pattern: brand, product type, key variant. ‘Nike Air Max 90 Running Shoes White’ tells the searcher exactly what they’ll find. Duplicate or near-identical titles force products to compete against each other in search results.
Product Descriptions
Thin descriptions with two or three sentences give Google almost nothing to index and give visitors no reason to trust you over the next shop selling the same thing. Aim for at least 200 words of genuinely useful copy per product.
Structure descriptions around the questions buyers have before clicking the buy button.
Fit and fabric weight for clothing. Compatibility and what’s in the box for electronics. Dimensions and assembly for furniture.
Good copywriting formulas can help you structure these consistently without making each one sound identical. Write for the person first, then check that your target keyword appears naturally.
Image Alt Text
Alt text is how screen readers describe images to visually impaired visitors, and it’s how Google understands image content for image search rankings. The WebAIM Million study found that roughly a third of images on popular homepages have missing, questionable, or repetitive alt text. Describe what’s actually in the image and let relevant keywords appear naturally.
‘Black leather Chelsea boots with elastic side panels, angled view’ is spot on. ‘Boots’ or ‘best boots cheap boots leather boots UK’ are both rubbish for different reasons.
For lifestyle shots, describe the scene including the product: ‘Woman wearing navy wool peacoat walking through a park in autumn’ connects your product to queries people actually type.
Product Schema
Schema markup is structured data about your products that can trigger rich snippets showing price, availability, and star ratings in search results. Shopify themes include basic product schema automatically, but you need to verify it’s working.
Use Google’s Rich Results Test and paste in a product URL. Pay particular attention to review schema if you collect feedback through apps like Judge.me or Loox.
Products displaying star ratings in search results pull higher click-through rates because the social proof does its work before the visitor even reaches your site.
The top three organic positions already capture 68.7% of all clicks, so anything that lifts your CTR is worth the faff of getting schema right.
Collection Page Optimisation
Collection pages often outrank individual products for broader terms because they target higher-volume category keywords and attract more internal links. Treating collections as primary SEO assets rather than simple product grids makes a real difference to organic traffic.
Keyword Targeting for Collections
Each collection should target a specific keyword phrase matching how customers search for product categories. ‘Women’s running shoes’ has more volume than any individual shoe model, and a well-optimised collection page can rank for that term whilst products pick up long-tail variations. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or Semrush for your ecommerce keyword research.
A page targeting ‘organic cotton baby clothes’ won’t rank if you sell one organic item among fifty conventional ones. Look for terms where you’ve got enough products to fill the collection credibly. Check what competitors rank for too. If established shops dominate the generic terms, more specific variations like ‘sustainable wool jumpers UK’ might be a better route in.
Collection Descriptions
A surprising number of Shopify shops leave collection descriptions blank, relying entirely on the product grid. Massive waste. Google has almost no text to index on what could be your highest-value category pages.
Place your primary keyword within the first 100 words. Explain what the collection includes, who it’s for, and what makes your selection worth browsing.
Keep descriptions between 150 and 300 words. Go longer and you risk pushing products below the fold on mobile. Some shops put the description below the product grid instead, which is a fair compromise. Either position works for SEO, so pick whichever suits the ecommerce UX you’re building.
Indexable Filter URLs
Shopify’s native filtering uses JavaScript that doesn’t generate separate URLs, so filtered views never get indexed. Third-party apps like Smart SEO or Boost Product Filter & Search can create static URLs for popular filter combinations.
If customers regularly search for ‘blue velvet sofas’, an indexable filtered page targeting that phrase picks up traffic your broader collection page misses.
Be selective about which filters get their own URLs, though. Creating hundreds of combinations produces thin pages with near-identical content, all competing against each other.
Pick the ones with genuine search volume and leave the rest as JavaScript-only filters.
Content Strategy
Products and collections capture people who are ready to buy. Content captures everyone else. This section of the ecommerce SEO checklist covers how to build out the content side.
Blog Content Targeting Buyer Questions
Most Shopify shops have a blog feature sitting completely unused. That’s a missed trick, because blog content can rank for informational queries that product pages can’t target.
Someone searching ‘how to choose running shoes for flat feet’ isn’t buying today. But answering their question well puts your shop in front of them when they are.
Dig into customer service emails, product reviews, and forums like Reddit to find recurring questions your audience asks before purchasing. Each question is a potential post. A solid ecommerce content marketing approach ties these informational posts back to your product and collection pages through internal links, which is where the SEO benefit kicks in.
Internal Linking
Internal links distribute authority across your site and help Google understand how pages relate to each other. A product page for hiking boots should link to your hiking socks collection, your blog post about breaking in boots, and your broader outdoor footwear guide.
Anchor text needs to describe the destination page naturally. ‘Our ecommerce SEO checklist‘ tells both readers and Google what they’ll find. Vague anchor text like ‘click here’ wastes the signal entirely.
Build linking into your publishing workflow: before publishing any new piece, identify which existing pages should link to it and vice versa. That discipline compounds over time and is one of the most underused parts of any ecommerce SEO guide.
If you want a structured approach to planning content and link architecture, an ecommerce SEO strategy guide breaks the process down step by step.
From Checklist to Ongoing SEO
Ticking off every item on this ecommerce SEO checklist gives your Shopify shop a proper foundation. Rankings don’t appear overnight, but shops that put in the graft consistently see their organic visibility compound month after month.
Run a full ecommerce SEO audit quarterly using Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to catch technical problems early. If you’d prefer hands-on help, our ecommerce SEO audit service identifies the highest-impact opportunities and builds a prioritised action plan for your shop and market.
