Shopify SEO: where to start

SEO can feel overwhelming, but for a Shopify store there's a clear starting point. This covers the basics: what to audit, what to fix first, and how to track your progress.

Audit your store first

Before making any changes, you need to know what's actually on your site. A crawling tool scans your store and surfaces technical issues automatically. Screaming Frog is one option, with a free plan that crawls up to 500 URLs. There are other tools available as well. Whatever you use, you're looking for the same things.

• Missing H1 tags: The H1 is the primary signal telling Google what a page is about. Every indexable page should have exactly one.
• Meta titles over 60 characters: Google truncates longer titles in search results, which reduces click-through rates. Aim for 50 to 60 characters.
• Missing or duplicate meta descriptions: These don't directly affect rankings but they do affect how often people click your result. Every key page should have a unique description between 140 and 155 characters.
• Heavy images: Page speed is a confirmed ranking factor. Images over 100kb slow your store down. Shopify handles some compression automatically but oversized source images still hurt performance.

Google Search Console

GSC is a free tool from Google that shows you how your store appears in search results. Connect it to your store and check it regularly.

The Coverage report shows which pages Google has indexed and which it hasn't, and why. This is where 404 errors and indexing problems appear.

The Performance report shows which pages and queries are driving traffic. Pages with high impressions but low click-through rates are quick wins: Google is already showing them, but the title or description isn't compelling enough to click.

Check for sudden drops in total clicks week over week. A drop of more than 15-20% without an obvious reason is worth investigating immediately.

The basics to optimize

• Meta titles and meta descriptions on your key pages: products, collections, and the homepage. These are frequently left at default values and are easy to improve.
• H1 tags across all pages. Most Shopify themes handle this correctly but it's worth verifying, especially on custom or heavily modified themes.
• Image compression. Tools like TinyPNG or Shopify's built-in compression help. Serving images in WebP format where possible also improves load times.

Tracking

Before drawing conclusions from your analytics, verify that your tracking is set up correctly. Stores with multiple marketing apps can end up with overlapping or conflicting tracking setups. Open your browser's network tab during a test purchase and check what events are firing. Shopify's native integrations for Google and Meta are generally the cleanest option where available.

Priority order

Fix errors before chasing opportunities. A page Google can't index can't rank regardless of how well optimized it is. After errors: H1s, meta titles, and meta descriptions. After that: image compression. Schema markup, which can improve eligibility for rich results in Google, comes later once the basics are covered.