Most Shopify stores don't have an SEO problem because of one big mistake. They have it because of twenty small ones that nobody ever fixed. The good news: almost all of them can be fixed inside your Shopify admin and theme, without an app. This checklist walks through the fixes we check first on every store we work on, in the order that usually matters most.
Start with the basics Google needs to find you
1. Connect Google Search Console
Search Console is free and it's the only place Google tells you, in its own words, which pages it indexed, which it skipped and why. Add your domain as a property, then submit your sitemap. Shopify creates one for you automatically at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml — you don't need an app for it.
2. Remove the storefront password before launch
While a store is password-protected, Google can't crawl any of it. If you have been building for weeks, check that the password is off on launch day, then use Search Console's URL Inspection tool to request indexing for your homepage and main collections.
3. Use one primary domain
In Settings → Domains, set your custom domain as primary so the myshopify.com address redirects to it. Two live versions of the same store split your ranking signals.
Fix your titles and descriptions
4. Write a unique title tag for every important page
Your title tag is the blue link people click in Google. Put the main keyword near the start and keep it around 50–60 characters. "Handmade Leather Wallets for Men | Brand" works far better than "Products – Brand". Edit it in the Search engine listing box at the bottom of every product, collection, page and blog post.
5. Write meta descriptions that sell the click
Meta descriptions don't directly change rankings, but they change how many people click. Aim for about 150 characters that say what the page offers and why it's worth opening. If you leave it empty, Shopify and Google will pull a random piece of text instead.
6. One H1 per page
Each page should have exactly one main heading (H1) that matches what the page is about. Many themes accidentally wrap the logo or a section title in an H1 too. Check with your browser's "Inspect" tool or any free SEO extension.
Make product and collection pages worth ranking
7. Write your own product descriptions
Copying the manufacturer's text means you're competing with every other store that copied it too. Describe who the product is for, what problem it solves, sizes and materials, and what's in the box. Use the words your customers actually search for.
8. Give collections real intro text
Collection pages often rank better than single products for broad searches like "running shoes for women". A short, helpful paragraph at the top of each collection gives Google something to understand beyond a grid of images.
9. Add alt text to every image
Alt text helps visually impaired shoppers and helps your images appear in Google Images. Describe the image plainly: "brown leather bifold wallet, open, showing card slots". Don't stuff keywords.
10. Compress images before uploading
Shopify serves images through its CDN and converts them to modern formats, but a 6 MB photo is still a 6 MB photo at the source. Resize product images to around 2000–2500 px on the long edge before upload. Fast pages rank and convert better — see our Shopify speed guide for more.
Clean up the technical side
11. Keep your URLs clean and set redirects
Short handles like /products/leather-wallet beat /products/copy-of-leather-wallet-new-2. If you change a URL that already has traffic, Shopify can create the 301 redirect for you — keep the "Create a URL redirect" box ticked when you edit the handle.
12. Understand Shopify's duplicate product URLs
Shopify can show the same product at /products/item and /collections/name/products/item. The canonical tag in a well-built theme points both to the /products/ version, so this is fine — but your internal links should point to the canonical version too.
13. Add structured data
Structured data (JSON-LD) tells search engines exactly what's on the page: a product, its price and stock, a breadcrumb trail, an article, an FAQ. It's what makes rich results possible. Many themes ship with incomplete or broken markup, so test your pages with Google's Rich Results Test.
Build authority over time
14. Link your pages to each other
Internal links help Google discover pages and understand which ones matter. Link from blog posts to the collections and products they mention, and from product pages to related products. Orphan pages — pages nothing links to — are easy to miss and slow to rank.
15. Publish helpful content consistently
A blog that answers real questions your customers ask ("how to choose", "how to care for", "X vs Y") brings in people who aren't ready to buy yet but will remember you. One genuinely useful post a month beats ten thin ones.
What to do next
Work through the list top to bottom — the first six items alone fix most of what we see on new stores. If you'd rather hand it off, our Shopify SEO service covers the full audit and every fix above, and you can see the rest of what we do in all services.