If you want more people to find your Shopify store, SEO is one of the smartest moves you can make. That’s where a Shopify SEO checklist comes in, a simple guide to help you optimize your store so that search engines (and customers) can find you easily.
No endless ad budgets, no guesswork, just smart tweaks that drive long-term traffic.
If you run an online store, making sure your pages are well-optimized can really pay off, it means more people finding you and checking out your products.
We’ve put together this Shopify SEO checklist: the exact steps we follow to help stores grow, from setting up the basics to link building. And we’re not just going to list the 26 best tips, we’ll also show you how to automate your SEO efforts.
What is a Shopify SEO Checklist?
A Shopify SEO checklist is your step-by-step guide to make your Shopify store show up higher in Google search results. It helps more people find your products when they’re searching for things you sell, whether it’s custom t-shirts, dog toys, or skincare products.
It’s not just about getting traffic, it’s about bringing the right customers to your store and turning visits into sales.
Why Should I Use a Checklist?
Running an online store comes with its own set of SEO challenges. Without the right strategy, you might struggle with some common problems:
- Thin product pages—thin content—that don’t rank well because they lack helpful, detailed content.
- Duplicate content from similar or auto-generated product descriptions that confuse Google.
- Messy site structure that makes it hard for both shoppers and search engines to navigate.
- Missing product schema, so Google doesn’t fully understand what you’re selling.
Following a Shopify SEO checklist helps you fix all of these issues, making your store stronger, more visible, and easier to shop. Benefits of using a Shopify SEO checklist are:
- Build long-term, free organic traffic that keeps growing.
- Get more visibility for your products with rich results.
- Improve site navigation and user experience.
- Boost your search rankings.
- Attract the right shoppers.
26 Shopify SEO Hacks for Big Wins in 2025
SEO can get pretty complex, with so many different areas to cover, but we’ve broken it all down into separate checklists to make it simple, clear, and easy to follow.
Basics SEO Setup Checklist
Basic SEO setup means setting up your website, installing the right tools, including Shopify SEO Apps, and configuring Google’s toolkit to help your store rank.
1. Invest in a custom domain
Ditch the “myshopify” in your store URL and use a custom domain instead. It looks more polished, builds trust, and can increase your click-through rate, which Google loves.
Your website’s URL is one of the first things shoppers see in search results, so make it count.
You can purchase a domain directly through Shopify or from a third-party provider. Once you have it, just go to Settings > Domains in your Shopify dashboard to connect it.
2. Choose a fast and responsive theme
Speed matters, a slow site can hurt your rankings and frustrate customers. Instead of choosing a fancy, heavy theme, go with one that’s lightweight and built for speed.
Mobile responsiveness is just as important since Google prioritizes the mobile version of your site. You can check how your store stacks up using Shopify’s built-in speed report or Google PageSpeed Insights.
If your score is low, consider switching to a faster, SEO-optimized theme. Shopify has plenty of great options designed to load quickly and perform well on all devices.
3. Install SEO Shopify tool
Search Atlas is an AI-powered SEO platform that helps Shopify store owners optimize their site from one dashboard.
Its AI assistant, OTTO SEO, analyzes your store, suggests improvements, and automates SEO tasks. You can generate blogs, product pages, and metadata, then publish them with one click.
It also offers keyword research, technical audits, and competitor backlink insights to help you improve rankings and stay ahead.
Here’s what you can do with Search Atlas:
- Automate content creation and on-page optimization with OTTO.
- Instantly generate and publish blogs, product pages, and metadata.
- Perform advanced keyword research with search intent data.
- Run technical audits and fix SEO issues quickly.
- Track competitor backlinks and strategies for smarter planning.
- And more…
4. Install Google analytics
Start by setting up Google Analytics (GA4) for your Shopify store. It’s the go-to tool for tracking how much traffic and revenue come from organic search.
You’ll also get valuable insights into where your visitors come from, which devices they use, and how they interact with your site.
Once your GA4 account is ready, link it to your Shopify store by navigating to Online Store > Preferences > Google Analytics and entering your account ID.
5. Set up Google search console
Google Search Console (GSC) is another essential tool for monitoring your store’s SEO health. It helps you track search queries bringing visitors to your site, spot crawl errors, monitor indexation, and check Core Web Vitals performance.
Go to the Search Console website to create an account. If you’ve already set up GA4, you can easily verify ownership using your Analytics account.
6. Submit your sitemap.xml to search console
While in the Search Console, make sure to submit your sitemap.xml so Google can easily discover and crawl your site’s pages.
Go to Index > Sitemaps > Add a new sitemap, and enter your sitemap URL (usually “sitemap.xml” for Shopify stores).
7. Perform keyword research
Before launching your SEO campaign, it’s necessary to use keyword research tools to identify your website’s main keywords. Without this step, you won’t know which terms to optimize for. Focus on keywords that have the potential to bring in the most revenue for your Shopify store.
You can approach keyword research in a few different ways:
- Write down the terms you think customers would use to find your products.
- Analyze competitor websites to discover which keywords they target.
- Use Google Ads data to identify keywords that already generate revenue.
- Check the “Search Results” report in GSC to find the queries driving traffic.
Once you have your list, narrow it down to 100-300 high-priority keywords, with larger stores needing broader lists.
8. Track your keywords
While GA4 and Search Console can show traffic and click data, they don’t give detailed insights into how your keywords are performing over time.
After identifying the keywords you want to rank for, it’s time to use a tool to track your rankings. Tracking your keywords will give you two main insights:
- How individual keywords rank over time.
- How your overall site ranks over time.
Several rank tracking tools are available to help you monitor this.
On-page SEO Checklist
On-page SEO focuses on optimizing individual web pages to improve their rankings and user experience within search engine results.
9. Ensure URLs have a clean structure
Although Shopify offers limited customization for URL structures, ensure any new paths you create are well-optimized. A well-structured URL is typically:
- Short and readable.
- Includes primary keywords.
- Easy for users to understand the page content.
Here’s how URLs for a “Men’s Dress Pants” collection might appear:
- OK: /collections/the-best-mens-dress-pants-23/
- Good: /collections/best-mens-dress-pants/
- Great: /collections/mens-dress-pants/
Shorter, cleaner URLs are better, making it easier for users to read while still using essential keywords. Fortunately, Shopify generally generates optimized URLs for collection pages.
10. Write compelling title tags
A simple yet effective way to improve your Shopify store’s SEO is by optimizing your meta tags (title tags and meta descriptions). For title tags, start with your key pages, such as collection and product pages, which are directly tied to revenue.
When adjusting your title tags, ensure you include the target keywords for the page. This signals to Google what the page is about.
Title tags are crucial for standing out in search results. They’re the clickable links in SERPs, so you need to make them compelling.
Title tag optimization best practices include:
- Make the title human-readable and clearly describe the page’s content. Include key terms and make it appealing.
- Keep your title tag under 60 characters for the best click-through rates.
- Place primary keywords early in the title to improve both clickability and search engine relevancy.
11. Optimize your meta description
A meta description is the brief text that appears beneath your title tag in search results. It should clearly explain the page’s content and entice users to click.
Meta descriptions serve two main roles: they offer your audience a first impression of your store in search results, and they must be persuasive to encourage potential customers to visit your page.
Although Google doesn’t specify a set character limit for meta descriptions, they typically truncate around 155-160 characters.
Use meta descriptions tools and be sure to place your target keywords and the most compelling copy at the beginning of your description, keeping it within this limit.
12. Identify internal linking opportunities
Internal linking is a key method for boosting your Shopify store’s SEO. These links help Google discover content deeper within your site structure and spread authority, all while enhancing user navigation.
To start, focus on your Shopify blog. Identify posts that mention important collections or products and link to those relevant pages. This will not only improve the SEO of the linked pages but also increase the chances of visitors taking action.
For instance, a shop can link to collection pages from their blog posts to drive traffic.
Additional ways to improve internal linking include:
- Adding “Related Products” sections on product pages.
- Linking to sub-collection pages from collection pages.
- Linking related collections from other collection pages.
13. Improve your website navigation
A crucial task to tackle early on is assessing your site’s navigation and identifying areas for improvement.
Navigation is a key part of SEO user experience (UX), influencing how both Google and visitors navigate your site. When evaluating your navigation, consider the following:
- Can users easily find the information they’re likely searching for?
- Are key collections and products easy to access through the navigation menu?
- Are competitors organizing their navigation differently, and can you learn from that?
- Does your navigation function seamlessly on mobile devices?
Technical SEO Checklist
Technical SEO focuses on optimizing the infrastructure of your website to ensure it’s accessible, fast, and easy for search engines to crawl.
14. Perform a crawl of your site
A crucial step in the technical SEO process is conducting a crawl of your Shopify store. This process simulates how search engines like Google navigate through your site, helping you identify any critical issues.
During a crawl, we typically focus on:
- Unoptimized title tags on key pages.
- Excessive 4xx and 3xx status codes.
- Canonical tag errors.
- Non-indexable URLs that can waste crawl budget.
Addressing these issues will improve Google’s ability to crawl and index your website efficiently. You can also use insights from the crawl to prioritize technical SEO fixes later in your Shopify optimization process.
15. Check your robots.txt file
The next task is reviewing your Shopify store’s robots.txt file, located at “domain.com/robots.txt.” This file includes directives for search engines, telling them what they can and cannot crawl. By default, Shopify blocks areas like checkout, cart, and internal search from being crawled.
For most stores, Shopify’s default settings are sufficient to prevent Google from indexing problematic areas.
However, stores with customizations, such as faceted navigation or unique search URLs, might need additional adjustments. You can refer to our guide for optimizing Shopify’s robots.txt file for more details.
16. Ensure category pages link to canonical products
One common technical SEO challenge that Shopify presents by default is duplicate content. Many Shopify stores, especially on collection pages, will inadvertently link to duplicate product pages.
For instance, if you visit your product pages and see “/collections/” and “/products/” in the URL, it indicates a duplicate page. These duplicate pages typically have canonical tags pointing to the main ranking page.
Here’s an example from a fictional store, Outdoor Gear Co:
- Category Page: https://www.outdoorgearco.com/collections/backpacks
- First Product Link: https://www.outdoorgearco.com/collections/backpacks/products/ultralight-backpack
- Canonical: https://www.outdoorgearco.com/products/ultralight-backpack
This means every product link across all category pages is essentially a duplicate.
Thankfully, you can address this by making changes to the product-grid-item.liquid file (note: the process might vary in different Shopify setups).
To make this adjustment:
- Go to Online Store > Themes in the left sidebar
- Click on Actions > Edit Code
- Find the “Snippets” folder and select “product-grid-item.liquid”
- Modify the following code:
- FROM: <a href=”{{ product.url | within: current_collection }}” class=”product-grid-item”>
- TO: <a href=”{{ product.url }}” class=”product-grid-item”>
17. Add schema markup
Schema markup helps search engines like Google understand your site’s content more effectively.
By structuring data in a specific format, it enables relevant information to be displayed directly in search results, potentially boosting click-through rates and driving more traffic to your website.
18. Implement lazy loading
To improve the loading speed of your Shopify store, check if images on your collection pages are utilizing lazy loading.
Lazy loading ensures that images are only loaded when the user scrolls to them within the viewport, improving the page’s load time by only serving the resources currently in use.
For Shopify stores, we recommend the lazysizes library to implement lazy loading. It works smoothly with Shopify and is relatively easy for developers to integrate. If your Shopify collection pages are not yet using lazy loading, this is a helpful resource to add to your store.
19. Check for indexation issues from JavaScript
Depending on how your Shopify store is set up, your content might depend on JavaScript to display correctly for both Google and users. If your site uses client-side JavaScript, it’s crucial to assess how Google indexes this content.
If Google can’t render all of the JavaScript, some content could remain unindexed, potentially affecting your rankings.
For example, here’s an illustration of a fictional online store’s Women’s Outerwear collection page.
- Outerwear Collection Page Example.
- Now, here’s the same page with JavaScript disabled.
- Outerwear Collection Page – Without JavaScript.
If JavaScript is handled client-side, it’s possible Google could miss some content. To ensure full indexation, perform these checks:
- Use the Chrome Developer Tools extension to disable JavaScript and observe which elements fail to load.
- Perform a “site:” search for specific pages and verify if content appears correctly.
- Test the page with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to see how much Google is able to index without JavaScript.
20. Check if your store is mobile-friendly
If Google sees pages load slowly or your site isn’t mobile responsive, it’s less likely to. If Google detects slow page loads or finds your site isn’t optimized for mobile, it’s less likely to rank your site highly in search results.
All themes in the Shopify Theme Store are optimized for mobile, but if you’re using a different platform, you can use this tool to check how your site appears on mobile devices. Every page should be as easy to navigate on mobile as it is on desktop.
To double-check your mobile optimization, use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Simply enter your URL to see if it’s optimized for mobile viewing.
SEO Content Checklist
SEO content involves creating valuable, relevant, and optimized material that enhances visibility, engagement, and ranking on search engines.
21. Create a content marketing strategy
Building and executing a comprehensive content marketing plan takes time. If you’re rushing through this SEO checklist, start with these actions:
- Identify customer inquiries: Think about questions customers might have when they’re aware of your product but lack complete knowledge.
- Content Planner: Analyze clusters to find topics with high search demand.
- Add value to your products: Many stores that sell food items also provide simple recipes. This is a clever tactic, as customers may not fully understand how to use products in the best way.
- Topical Maps: Auto-generate content ideas and keyword priorities for authority.
22. Format content for readability
Clear and concise content holds value.
However, there’s typically a minimum length required to effectively address a question and have a chance of ranking. Most questions require at least a few hundred words, and top-ranking Google results often exceed this; the average top 10 result includes 1,447 words.
Effective content incorporates keywords in H1, H2, and H3 tags, signaling to Google and other search engines what the content is about, which helps establish site authority and boosts sitewide rankings.
To avoid overwhelming visitors with long paragraphs, follow these tips for easy-to-read content:
- Use a table of contents with jump links, a strategy that can help secure the featured snippet.
- Incorporate multimedia like infographics, videos, or graphs.
- Break up sections using bullet points.
- Use Hemingway to simplify complex sentences and paragraphs.
- Include subheadings for easier scanning.
- Add a FAQ section.
Despite the correlation between longer content and higher rankings, quality is far more important than quantity. Don’t add unnecessary words just for the sake of length.
23. Create specialized landing pages
Rather than directing customers to your homepage and expecting them to navigate for information, generate a landing page that focuses on a single topic in depth. Optimize it with relevant keywords and formatting to rank for specific searches.
Creating product collections optimized for low-competition keywords can help improve rankings for specific items. For example, grouping related products together in a collection and adding a description targeting informational keywords can boost your visibility.
Building backlinks for these collections and creating blog posts that link to them helps establish topical authority and strengthens your SEO strategy.
Off-page SEO checklist
Off-page SEO involves strategies to improve a website’s authority, reputation, and visibility through external factors like backlinks and social signals.
24. Analyze competitor’s backlinks
With tools like backlink analyzer, you can check which websites are linking to your competitors.
For example, if a tech startup’s blog has backlinks from tech giants like Microsoft, Salesforce, and Google, it’s helpful to understand why these companies decided to link. What about the blog made it link-worthy?
By identifying patterns, like if competitor blogs receive multiple mentions from industry experts, this can give you ideas about potential partnerships.
You’ll also get a sense of what other website owners in your field value, which can help you create content that attracts high-quality backlinks.
25. Write guest posts
Building backlinks through collaborations can be an effective strategy. If you know a fitness influencer who often reviews the type of gym equipment you sell, reaching out with a simple pitch can lead to a valuable partnership.
Alternatively, search for websites actively seeking guest contributors. You’ll typically earn a backlink in your author bio in exchange for sharing your expertise.
To find guest posting opportunities, try these search queries:
- [niche] + “write for us”
- [niche] + “contribute”
- [niche] + “guest post”
26. Write press releases
The snowball effect is impactful: earning one high-quality backlink can improve your rankings, which then attracts more traffic, leading to even more backlinks.
Journalists are constantly on the lookout for newsworthy stories. Building relationships with them can help you secure media coverage on authoritative websites that provide valuable backlinks to your site.
To gain press coverage and build backlinks, consider these strategies:
- Entering awards or competitions.
- Distributing press releases.
- Supporting a social cause.
- Sending product samples to journalists.
- Responding to journalist queries through platforms like HARO.
Streamline and Automate Key Steps from Your Shopify SEO Checklist
You don’t have to spend endless hours going through every SEO checklist manually.
With the right tools, most of that work can be automated, and that’s exactly what Search Atlas delivers.
It handles the heavy lifting for you, so you can focus on what matters most: running and growing your business. Plus, with Search Atlas, you can spot SEO issues, apply fixes, and optimize your site at lightning speed, helping you rank faster and sell faster.
Want to boost your online shop? Search Atlas and OTTO make it easy! Check out the free trial now. No commitment, just results.
