Shopify SEO Guide for Beginners - The Ultimate Guide

You can verify my numbers and work with me in my profile. I answer lots of the questions in the comments in this Shopify SEO Q&A video.

Note: If you’re experienced in Shopify SEO this post may not be very relevant to you.

In my last post, I talked about how I grew my (former) Shopify store, in the men’s accessories niche, to over 700K without paid ads, using SEO only and then went on to sell my store to a buyer for all cash.

This post will cover just Shopify SEO itself, why you need to do it and why it matters if you want to sell your Shopify store one day, which you should.

Let’s begin...

Shopify SEO Foundation - Keyword Research

C'mon Mike, seriously??! Hey, I warned you it's a beginner's guide ;)

Here’s why we do keyword research: We don’t want to guess how people search, we want to KNOW with actual search volume how people search for a thing, THEN we base our SEO decisions around what we found with actual search volume data.

Here are the most common keyword research tools to use:

• Google Keyword Planner - Free, gets the job done, quick and dirty

• Amazon Suggest - Free - Good for product or collection research.

• Ahrefs - Paid, expensive, but my preferred choice if you can afford it.

• SEMRush - Paid, expensive and a popular choice.

Use any of those tools to search the keywords that best describe your homepage, collections and product pages with a ‘siloed’ structure so that your pages do not compete with each other.

Example:

• Homepage keyword: Armenian underwear

  • Collections keyword: Men’s Armenian underwear

    • Product page keyword: Silk Men’s Armenian underwear

Research keywords for each page type above (homepage, collections and products), then export your keyword lists into something like a Google spreadsheet.

Go down the list, marking which keywords make the most sense to use for your homepage, collections and product pages.

Once you have your keyword research done, then you can move on to implementing the actual keywords you found into your Shopify SEO.

Title Tags - for ranking and selling the click

Make sure your homepage, collections and products have their title tags set up properly using the keywords you found during the keyword research phase.

When you write your title tags, there is an art to writing them.

Write your title tags with the following naming convention:

Primary Keyword | Call to Action | Your Brand Name

or just

Primary Keyword | Call to Action

For example:

Armenian Underwear | Wear Them Now | Armenian Undies

or

Armenian Underwear | Wear Them Now

Notice how the keyword “Armenian Underwear” is in the very front of the title?

That’s intentional.

Why? Because Google puts more weight on keywords that are closer to the front of your titles.

Notice how the title also has the call to action of “Wear Them Now”?

That’s intentional too.

Why? Because Google measures the CTR (click-through-rate) of your page and uses that measurement to determine if you should be ranked higher or lower, compared to your competitors.

If you get a good CTR (click through rate), your page will increase in the rankings. If you get bad CTR then your page will drop in the rankings like a sad poop emoji falling from the sky.

How do you find the CTR for your pages? Use Google Search Console to see the data.

Meta Descriptions - for selling the click

Write your meta descriptions in such a way that you include the keyword in the description once or twice along with language that encourages them to click with a call to action. Use language like “get yours now” or "free shipping" to make them want to click on your page, thus increasing your CTR and ranking your page higher.

Example meta description:

'Premium Armenian underwear that will elevate your ass. Get your silky smooth pair now with free shipping and returns (eww)...'

URLs - for ranking and UX

URLs are critically important and may be one of the most misused, misunderstood and under-appreciated elements of good Shopify SEO.

Warning: URLs require extreme consideration and thoughtfulness as you should avoid changing them after initially optimized. Take your time to get them right the first time.

You need to use the keyword research you already did in the beginning to determine which keywords to use. Implement your chosen keywords with hyphens (-) to separate the words in the URL with the following structure.

Example URLs:

/collections/mens-armenian-underwear

/products/mens-silk-armenian-underwear

Pretty basic stuff right? Exactly. The problem is, nobody does the basic stuff!

Image optimization - for Google image search SEO

Images are easy, but again nobody does it because it’s boring ass work.

Here’s what you do:

Put the optimized keyword in the image file name, separate by hyphens:

silk-armenian-underwear.png

Then also put that keyword in the ‘Alt tag’ for that image.

This way you can pick up organic traffic from Google image search. Yes, this is a pain in the ass, but if you want to do Shopify SEO right, this is what it means.

Examples Per Page Type

Now let’s combine everything we’ve covered with some examples for each page type:

Home Page SEO

Title Tag:

Armenian Underwear | Shop Now | Armenian Undies

Meta Description:

Premium Armenian underwear that will elevate your ass. Get your silky smooth pair now with free shipping and returns (eww)...

URL:

/

Collections SEO

Title Tag:

Men’s Armenian Underwear | Choose Your Material | Armenian Undies

Description:

Got an itchy ass? Our men’s Armenian underwear comes in a variety of fabrics. Choose yours now and get free shipping…

URL:

/collections/mens-armenian-underwear/

Product Pages SEO

Title Tag:

Men’s Silk Armenian Underwear | Choose Your Color | Armenian Undies

Description:

Get silky smooth with our premium silk Armenian underwear. Choose your favorite color. Free shipping on every order…

URL:

/products/mens-silk-armenian-underwear/

Keyword Optimized Content

Now that you have all of that in place, we can move onto content.

You just want to write good quality content that describes what the user is going to experience on that page and any vital information, things they should know...etc. Include your keyword(s) multiple times and weave them in and out of the content naturally.

Rule of thumb: Aim to include your keyword at least 1-2x per paragraph, but don’t get OCD about this because Google understands natural language and synonyms. Just try to include it where it is natural.

Home Page Content

For the homepage, I suggest you have at least 1000 words. Explain what the store sells, the benefits and any additional perks such as free shipping.

Here are some things you can include on your homepage:

• Lifestyle content

  • What problem does it solve for the customer?

  • Style and self-expression

• FAQ section (put towards the bottom)

  • Questions about the products, shipping and store policies

• Q&A section (put towards the bottom)

  • Target ‘question keywords’ so that you have a chance at showing up in the featured snippets of Google. Think broad questions like “Where does Armenian underwear come from?”. Your keyword research will reveal these question keywords.

Collections Content

On your collection pages, you want to have a minimum of 500 words. This is harder to do on the collection pages because you don’t want a big wall of text to push the products down, right?

Instead, show a preview of about 50 words of content with a "read more" link that reveals the rest of the text when clicked. Look into custom CSS for this. This way, your content is at the top of the page (which is better for Google) but doesn’t push the products down the page, since it is collapsed under the ‘read more’ link.

Secret tip!

Google LOVES to rank collection pages for buyer-intent keywords.

Meaning: if a user searches a keyword that has buyer intent like ‘best Armenian underwear’, or ‘2024 armenian underwear’ Google is more likely to rank COLLECTION PAGES over homepages or product pages, because it understands that that keyword means the user is wanting to shop and compare, so showing collection pages are the proper result to show for that. This is important to know, so that you can map your keywords to the proper page type.

Confused about what kind of page a keyword belongs on? Google that keyword and looks at which kinds of pages Google already ranks. That will tell you what to do.

Don’t sleep on your collection pages' SEO.

Product Pages Content

For product pages, you want to have as much content as you can.

Describe your products thoroughly with a minimum of 200 words, preferably 1000 if you can.

This is a great spot to incorporate UGC (user generated content) through customer review strategies. Setup an email series to email the customer after purchase to leave a picture review of them with your products in exchange for a discount on their next purchase. This will create a ‘flywheel’ of customers creating content for you.

Check my profile for recommended apps for this.

Blogging?

Blogging makes my head hurt.

People hear the word ‘blogging’ and think that means they need to write endless blog posts about absolutely nothing that just fills their store with garbage content that ends up getting no readers or links and dilutes the SEO power of their store. Meaning, you create a bunch of DEAD WEIGHT by blogging without a real strategy.

I’ll just say this: DO NOT BLOG FOR BLOGGING’S SAKE.

That being said, if you see keywords in your keyword research phase would pull in your target customer, then you should plan on how to create an authoritative piece of content around that topic to pull them in.

Examples:

'Underwear shopping guide'

'Underwear styles, from the 1950s to today'

The idea here is less is more. If you create content, it should always be AUTHORITATIVE and with tons of value, so that you can always shop it around for LINKS!

Other Pages - for legitimacy

You should have these other pages so that you look legit and aren’t some fly-by-night operation in your Mom’s basement:

• Privacy Policy

• Terms & Conditions

• Refund & Returns Policy

• About Us

• Contact

You can find language for these pages all over the Internet or use ChatGPT.

Force Crawl Your Changes - for speed

Any time you make changes to your site, do a forced-crawl in Search Console to get those changes indexed FAST.

Put the URL you want crawled in Search Console in the “URL Inspection” field and hit “Request Indexing”. This means it will crawl your page ASAP as opposed to whenever it gets around to it, which could be days or weeks.

Site Speed - for better rankings

Site speed is another big factor in ranking well in Google. If your Shopify store is loading slowly (or slower than your competitors) Google will rank you lower.

The basics are pretty simple:

• Avoid using big, uncompressed pictures or files anywhere on your site (use an image optimizer plugin or manually resize your images before uploading them

• Avoid images sizes bigger than 100KB if you can help it

• Avoid using custom code

• Use pagespeed.web.dev to test your scores

Building Backlinks - for beating the competition

Now, just because you did some Shopify SEO basics like the title tag, description, URL naming and wrote some content doesn't mean your job is done Snuffleupagus.

What really powers your store to the top, especially if you’re in a competitive niche is BACKLINKS. We’ve all heard of them right? Yet, they seem so elusive and peculiar, like that mystery pizza sauce stain on your shirt.

Building backlinks is not easy, however, there are strategies that work well for Shopify store owners, since we have physical products to leverage...

How many backlinks do you need?

Homepage: As many as humanly possible to your homepage

Collections: Collection page links are near impossible to get, so don’t worry about them too much. A simple way to get links to your collection pages is to link to them in your store’s content internally.

Product Pages (best sellers): Maybe a handful of links (depending how competitive).

Product Review Campaigns

One effective campaign to use to get backlinks to your store is by implementing a product review campaign. There are a few ways to do this:

Approach Small Bloggers

The idea is simple: You outreach to bloggers to review your products. They will review your product and post their review on their website, usually including a link to your brand and the product itself if you do this right.

Use your best selling products for this campaign.

Here are the basic steps and what to look for:

1. Create a list of small blogs in your niche with a DA (domain authority) of DA5-DA20 in a Google spreadsheet. Think one-man/one-woman-army type of blogs where the blogger themselves answer emails.

2. Get their emails and send them an email pitch to review your product on their website.

Here’s a simple template you can customize:

Subject: Fan of Your Content

Hi [Blogger's Name],

I love the content you write about. I especially loved [some personalized thing from their blog or something they said].

I was wondering if you would be open to reviewing my best selling product on your blog? I think it would fit in perfectly with your content and audience and of course you would get to keep what I send to you as a gift.

Please let me know and I can share more details and get it out to you ASAP.

Either way, keep up the great work!

Sincerely,

[Your First Name]

1. Ship them your product

2. Wait for the review to go live with your backlinks if you did everything right

Rinse and repeat this process until you get multiple bloggers reviewing your product and linking to your product pages.

To find these bloggers, you can search Google using search operators like "fashion blog" "powered by WordPress." or use of the more premium software tools to save lots of time - check my profile for recommendations.

Don’t want to do any of that?

Go to Upwork and throw up a job for a “link prospector”. That person will create a list of blogs for you to outreach to. You can also throw up a job for an “outreach manager” once you have your process down of getting links consistently from bloggers.

Just make sure you either do them yourself or get someone experienced. Don’t let an inexperienced person burn through all of your prospects and waste the list!

Content Marketing for Links

Another option for building links to your Shopify store is content marketing. This revolves around finding a topic that is relevant to your store and producing a piece of content that you can shop around to bloggers to link to.

Some content types that do well:

• Proprietary Data Studies: Can you turn the data you have on your customers into some kind of visual data-driven study that bloggers would love to link to?

  • Example: ‘Men Prefer Silk Underwear Over Cotton According to this Silky Smooth Study (with underwear infographic)’

• Ultimate Guides: These are massive posts on your store’s blog that act as a ‘how to’ guide and are positioned as authoritative and a serious resource.

  • Example: ‘The Ultimate Guide to Men’s Underwear in 2024’

After you create these content pieces, you would once again perform outreach to shop your content around. You need to be flexible with the possibilities of things that can happen, so don’t be a mechanical robot about this. Just get people interested when you’re outreaching and offer them a lot of value to get these results.

Reverse Engineering Your Competition

Since link building is a real biznatch, sometimes you just want to see what the competition did and copy them.

In that case, go to Ahrefs and search your competitors.

You’ll see their backlinks and which sites are linking to them. It will give you ideas for how you may be able to secure the same exact links or give you ideas for an outreach campaign to mimic what they did.

This is especially useful when doing product review campaigns as if you see that a competitor is getting their products reviewed by bloggers, it already tells you exactly who to contact for your own reviews.

Leverage Your Products for Links

I don't have all the answers on how you can get links. There are literally infinite ways to build links. Just remember this, YOU HAVE PHYSICAL PRODUCTS TO LEVERAGE. Get creative and think outside the box. There are probably a bunch of ways to get links by leveraging your products that nobody has discovered or thought of yet. Just think "I have these products, how can someone give me a link for it?". Let your imagination go wild on this...

Shopify SEO is Not as Hard as You Think

While all of this is mind-numbing and boring to think about it, it is ESSENTIAL if you want to rank, get organic traffic and most importantly, BUILD A STORE THAT HAS INTRINSIC VALUE, so that one day you can SELL YOUR STORE TO A BUYER.

Let me know any questions you have in the comments or anything I missed and I’ll do my best to answer them!

I always keep an eye on new comments, so if this post is old when you find it then comment anyway and I'll get back to you at some point.

TLDR; You'll be ahead of 90% of people by doing even the basics of SEO

~ Mikey B

You can verify my numbers and work with me in my profile. I answer lots of the questions in the comments in this Shopify SEO Q&A video.

Like the title says. Trying to work on my SEO for my store so I can get some organic growth. Any tips and insight? Any good articles you guys can link me to?

I made a Shopify shop about 1 Year ago. And I did onsite SEO without any SEO app. Now I get around 2.5K clicks and more than 200K impressions per month.

Recently I was thinking of using an SEO App but after checking most of the SEO apps in the Store I found it won't help too much with what I have done already without using them.

Such as

• Add alt tag - I have added when uploading them

• Image compression - I have compressed them before uploading them

• Title - Shopify already has inbuild

• Description - Shopify has inbuild

• Extra keywords - Shopify doesn't have this option

• 404 - You can check and manually redirect any link

• Image lazyload - This can done by adding a single line code

I just want to know if anyone used any Shopify SEO App to increase their rank. And if it works. Or do you have any suggestions on what is the best SEO app for Shopify Shop?

Hey everyone! I've taken the plunge and opened up my own Shopify store (finally!). I'm super excited but also slightly overwhelmed with trying to get everything off the ground, especially when it comes to attracting visitors. It seems my store is living in some sort of invisible mode because the organic traffic is just... well, it's embarrassingly low.

I've read through countless articles and watched endless tutorials on SEO, but the more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know, and honestly, I'm trying to keep my overheads low at this stage.

I'm reaching out to this wonderful community in hopes of getting some actionable, budget-friendly SEO strategies that have worked for you. How do you tackle the giant that is Google's algorithm? Are there any must-do's and absolute don'ts that a newbie like me should be aware of? I'm all ears and ready to learn.

Any advice, tips, or even stories from your early days (missteps to avoid are super welcome!) would mean the world to me. Thanks in advance for helping a fellow entrepreneur out!

Can anyone point to a shopify site that, in your opinion, has absolutely crushed Shopify SEO - not just limited to listing optimization, but also content / blog?

If your own site has managed to crack SEO for a specific query, please share the keyword and what you did to optimize for it.

Hey everyone,

I’m an SEO specialist working on a Shopify store, and I’d love to get some insights from the community on how to optimize SEO for Shopify sites. Coming from a WordPress background, I’ve noticed that some things work differently here, especially when it comes to technical SEO.

A few key areas where I’d love to get your thoughts:

• Meta robots & indexing control – Shopify doesn’t always include a meta robots tag in the HTML. What’s the best way to manage it? Are there any apps or workarounds?

• Sitemaps & robots.txt – Shopify generates these automatically, but can they be modified for better control? Are there any best practices for handling duplicate pages, collections, or filtering parameters?

• Structured data & rich snippets – Is the default JSON-LD structured data in Shopify good enough, or is it better to use an app? Any recommended structured data generators?

• Breadcrumbs & internal linking – Shopify doesn’t handle breadcrumbs natively in many themes. What’s the best approach to add and optimize them?

• Best SEO apps/plugins – I’ve heard that Yoast isn’t as effective on Shopify as it is on WordPress. What are the best SEO apps you’ve used? (SEO Manager, Smart SEO, Plug In SEO, RankMath?)

• Technical SEO challenges – Are there any common issues you’ve faced with Shopify’s SEO and how did you solve them?

I’d really appreciate any recommendations, tools, or strategies that have worked for you! Thanks in advance for your help.

I’m trying to improve my Shopify store’s search rankings, but there are so many SEO apps out there some are great, some are just hype. Curious what the community thinks!

Popular / Useful Shopify SEO Apps:

• Plug in SEO

• SEO Manager

• Smart SEO

• Ahrefs / Semrush integration apps

• ReloadSEO

Apps that can be disappointing:

• Overpriced “one-click SEO” apps with minimal results

• Apps that slow down store speed without clear benefits

Any SEO tips for a new Shopify shop?

Wich one do you use for SEO for shopify? I find rank math seo with wordpress amazing but with shopify I am clueless.

Hi everyone,

I'm seeking help with the SEO for my website, www.sixbikini.com. Despite the site performing fairly well organic traffic is non-existent. A bit about our site:We sell bikinis targeting women aged 20-50 in Europe .Our products are priced between €59 and €100.

Revenues come mostly from ads.

To be honest, we've put very little effort into improving our SEO so far, mainly because we are not sure what will help. I would greatly appreciate any advice or recommendations on why the search ranking is so atrocious and where to start to improve the situation.

Thank you for your assistance!

Could someone provide a step-by-step guide for performing SEO on a Shopify website? Need checklist to ensure all necessary steps are covered.

I am improving a SEO from a ecommerce and at the moment using SEOant, but since I dont have the paid version is not allowing me to do any other change on titles, images, etc.

What plugins do you usually go to improve SEO? If you even use any plugins to do that

Hi guys! I was wondering what you are doing to improve your SEO? What are the specific tools you are using, and what are some pros and cons? Is there anything that uses AI? Or maybe even helps you pop up in AI searches? Or maybe it's the best way to use it yourself. Let me know.

I have a Shopify store that I am working on the SEO for and I know that a lot of emphasis typically goes on the collection page. Since you're somewhat limited to the amount of content that can be put on a collection page, is it a good idea to create a content page targeting the same keyword and then linking to the collection page?

Hi!

Hope you're doing great.

I've been running an online store on Shopify for about 7-8 months now. Last month, I started diving into SEO on my own, but I've realized it's a ton of work that I honestly can't handle at the moment. There's this Semrush-certified agency that's charging me $800 a month.

Unfortunately, due to my lack of knowledge and experience, I'm not sure what kind of impact starting SEO work will have. They've suggested a 7-month plan to start seeing results.

I'm getting around 700 organic visits per month right now.

What can I expect from doing SEO? I guess it's not going to be a massive surge in visits overnight, but I'm unsure whether to make the investment or not.

I would really appreciate any help and guidance, mainly to understand what to expect and to set my expectations right.

Many thanks in advance!

I run a bricks and mortar shop selling mountain bikes and have recently built up a Shopify store which is now live. I have collections for the different types of bike that we offer.

I have done a bit of SEO research but I'm slightly confused. Should I be getting 3 keywords to focus on for each collection as they are slightly different (brands, type of bike etc) or should I focus on 3 keywords across the entire site?