The Shopify SEO checklist, in priority order.

Shopify does more for your SEO out of the box than most store owners realise. It also leaves a handful of problems that quietly hold stores back for years, because nothing on the dashboard flags them.

This checklist sorts the work into the order we'd actually do it on a store: first the things that waste Google's attention, then the pages that earn rankings, then the polish. Every item says what to check, why it matters and roughly how much effort it takes. It's the same order we follow in our ecommerce SEO work, written so you can do as much of it yourself as you like.

What does Shopify already handle for you?

Before adding apps or hiring anyone, know what's already done. Shopify:

• Generates a sitemap. It lives at yourstore.com/sitemap.xml, links to separate sitemaps for products, collections, pages and blogs, and updates itself when you add content.
• Ships a default robots.txt. Shopify describes it as suitable for most stores, and it updates automatically unless you override it.
• Lets you edit titles and descriptions. Every product, collection, page and post has a "search engine listing" section. Shopify allows up to 70 characters in a title but suggests about 60 so it isn't cut short.
• Builds the H1 from your title. The name you give a product or collection becomes its main heading.
• Adds canonical tags. Product URLs reached through a collection point back to the clean /products/ address.

So you rarely need an "SEO app" to create a sitemap or meta tags. The gaps are elsewhere.

Which Shopify SEO fixes come first?

Here's the priority order we use. Work top to bottom; the early items make everything below them more effective.

How do you stop duplicate product URLs on Shopify?

Many Shopify themes link from a collection to a product using a path like /collections/linen/products/sheet-set. The same product also lives at /products/sheet-set. Shopify adds a canonical tag pointing to the clean version, which helps, but your own internal links are still voting for the longer address.

The checklist:

• [ ] Open a collection page, hover over a product and look at the link. If it contains /collections/, your theme is using collection-aware URLs.
• [ ] In the collection or product card template, find the product URL filter that adds the collection context (often written as within: collection) and remove it, so links go straight to /products/.
• [ ] Re-crawl the site with any desktop crawler and confirm product links now point to one URL each.
• [ ] Leave the old collection-path URLs alone. They still resolve with a canonical tag, and you don't need to block or redirect them.

The same logic applies to tag-filtered collection pages and filter parameters. Google's own guidance on faceted navigation says filter combinations cause overcrawling and slow the discovery of new pages. Check Search Console's page indexing report for URLs containing filter or tag parameters. If hundreds are indexed and none bring traffic, that's where a carefully written robots.txt.liquid rule earns its risk.

What should go on a Shopify collection page?

Collection pages usually target the searches with real volume: "linen duvet covers", "women's trail running shoes", "vegan protein powder". Most themes show a title and a grid, which gives Google very little to work with.

• [ ] A short intro above the grid. Two or three sentences in plain language that say what's in the collection and who it suits. Don't push the products below the fold on mobile.
• [ ] Buying help below the grid. How to choose a size, the difference between two materials, care advice. This is where long, specific searches get answered.
• [ ] Three to five FAQs. Pull them from your support inbox and product reviews, not from a keyword tool alone.
• [ ] Links to sub-collections people search for. If shoppers search "king size linen duvet cover", a dedicated collection beats a filter.
• [ ] A unique title and description that use the phrase people actually type, not your internal category name.

Keep it honest. A wall of keyword-stuffed text at the bottom of the page helps nobody and reads like it.

How should you write Shopify product pages that rank?

If your product description came from the manufacturer, assume dozens of other stores have the same paragraph. Google's spam policies single out republishing content from other sites without adding original value. A supplier description isn't spam on its own, but it's not a reason to rank you over the next retailer either.

• [ ] Rewrite your top twenty sellers first, then work down by margin.
• [ ] Add what only you know: fit notes, what customers return it for, how it compares with the item next to it.
• [ ] Write alt text that describes each image plainly. Shopify itself notes alt text is also an accessibility feature for people with visual impairments.
• [ ] Use variants for size and colour rather than separate near-identical products, unless people search for each variant by name.
• [ ] Keep reviews genuine. The FTC's rule on reviews bans buying them and offering rewards conditioned on a positive or negative review.

If you're tempted to generate every description with AI in one afternoon, read Google's definition of scaled content abuse first: many pages generated without adding value for users. AI-assisted drafts that a person edits with real product knowledge are a different thing.

Do you need product schema and a Merchant Center feed?

Yes, if you want the richer product results. Google separates product snippets (for pages that review products) from merchant listings (for pages where people can buy). Merchant listings need an Offer with your price and availability, and can show shipping and returns too.

• [ ] Test a few product URLs in Google's Rich Results Test and fix missing price, availability or currency.
• [ ] Add shipping details and a return policy. Google recommends setting a store-wide return policy at the organisation level and only overriding it per product when needed.
• [ ] Connect Shopify to Google Merchant Center; free product listings can then show your catalogue in Search, Images, the Shopping tab, Maps and YouTube at no cost.
• [ ] Check that feed prices match page prices after every sale or price change.

Google says supplying both structured data and a Merchant Center feed gives you the best eligibility. Many themes include basic product markup; few include everything.

What happens to SEO when you delete or rename products?

Stock changes are where Shopify stores lose rankings without noticing.

• [ ] Coming back soon? Keep the page live, mark it out of stock and, if you can, show a restock date.
• [ ] Gone for good? Redirect the URL to the nearest replacement or its collection. Shopify only allows redirects from broken URLs, so delete the product, set it to draft or remove it from every sales channel first.
• [ ] Renaming a product? Changing the URL handle breaks the old address. Make sure a redirect from the old handle to the new one exists before you save.
• [ ] Watch the limit. Standard Shopify stores can hold up to 100,000 redirects, which is plenty unless you churn thousands of SKUs a season.

Don't redirect every dead product to the home page. Shoppers land somewhere irrelevant, and the old page's relevance is thrown away.

Do apps and themes slow your Shopify store down?

Often. Every app that adds a widget can add scripts to every page, and uninstalling an app doesn't always remove the code it injected into your theme.

• [ ] Run your home page, a collection and a product through PageSpeed Insights on mobile.
• [ ] List every installed app and ask whether it still earns its place.
• [ ] Search your theme files for leftover code from apps you've removed.
• [ ] Compress large hero images and avoid autoplay video above the fold on mobile.

A worked example: fixing one collection end to end

Say you sell bedding and your "linen sheets" collection sits on page two. Here's how the checklist plays out on that one page:

1. Search Console shows Google indexing forty URLs with colour and size filters attached to the collection. None get clicks. You decide which filters deserve their own collections (perhaps "king size linen sheets") and keep crawlers off the rest.
2. Collection grid links now point to clean /products/ URLs.
3. A three-sentence intro explains the difference between stonewashed and standard linen. Below the grid, five FAQs answer the questions your support team gets most.
4. The three best-selling sheet sets get rewritten descriptions with fit notes for deep mattresses.
5. Product markup now includes shipping and returns, and the Merchant Center feed matches.

None of that is clever. It's just the full checklist applied to the page that matters most, before moving on to the next one.

What doesn't work on Shopify?

• SEO apps that promise to "fix everything". Most generate meta tags Shopify already lets you edit. Check what one actually changes before paying monthly for it.
• Indexing every tag page. It multiplies thin URLs and splits attention away from real collections.
• Blog posts with no link into the store. Content earns attention; internal links send that attention to pages that sell.
• Changing themes without a crawl first. A new theme can change product links, headings and schema overnight.

Where to go from here

Work through the table at the top of this checklist and you'll have dealt with most of what holds Shopify stores back. When you want to know whether it's paying off, measure organic revenue rather than sessions; our guide to calculating marketing ROI shows how. And if you'd rather someone else ran the list every month, that's what our ecommerce SEO service is for.

Sources: Shopify Help Center, "Finding and submitting your sitemap", "Editing robots.txt.liquid", "Creating and managing URL redirects" and "Adding keywords to your online store"; Google Search Central, "Managing crawling of faceted navigation URLs", "Introduction to Product structured data", "Merchant listing structured data" and "Spam policies for Google web search"; Google Merchant Center Help, "About free listings"; Federal Trade Commission, final rule banning fake reviews and testimonials (August 2024); Amsive, "Resolving Shopify duplicate content between collection and product pages".