Shopify SEO checklist

• Export every product: Products > Export > All products, as a CSV.
• Duplicate your live theme before editing its code. If your theme library is full, the duplicate fails without much warning, so download the theme file instead.
• Write down your current homepage title and description, so you can put them back.

• In each product, find the Search engine listing section and click the pencil icon, then fill in Page title and Meta description (Shopify Help Center).
• Shopify accepts titles up to 70 characters and suggests keeping them to about 60 so they aren't cut off in results (Shopify Help Center).
• Keep meta descriptions under 160 characters. Search engines show about 140 of them below the title.
• Write each one from the product itself: what it is, what it's made of, who it's for.

• Collections have a Search engine listing section too. For pages, go to Online Store > Pages, open the page, and edit the search engine listing there (Shopify Help Center). Collections are the pages that answer broader searches, such as a product type, so don't skip them.
• Set your homepage title and meta description in Online Store > Preferences (Shopify Help Center).

Shopify themes add your store name to title tags on their own (Shopify SEO overview). Open any product page, view the page source, and read the title tag. Some themes print the brand name twice, once in the title setting and once in a suffix. The fix is one line in the theme's layout file. If you don't edit theme code, this is the step to hand to a developer.

• Open the product, click the image, and choose Add alt text (Shopify Help Center). You can also upload alt text in bulk with a CSV.
• Shopify allows 512 characters and recommends 125 or fewer.
• Describe what's in the photo: the product, its color, its size or scent if the photo shows it. Look at each photo before you write. A photo can show a different variant than the one it is attached to, and alt text written from the product name would describe the wrong thing.
• Shopify's media editor can suggest AI alt text. Read every suggestion against the photo before you accept it.

An empty collection page gives a search engine nothing to read but product names. Write a short introduction for each public collection: what's in it, who it's for, and how it differs from your other collections.

While you're there, open each collection as a shopper. A collection whose only product is still a draft shows shoppers nothing at all.

• One H1 per page. Some themes add extra H1 headings in banners and sections.
• Enough words. Products with a line or two of description give search engines very little. Add what customers ask about: ingredients or materials, sizes, how to use it, how it ships.
• Check apps that replace your description. Some apps show a different description for each variant. If your new copy doesn't appear on the page, an app is showing its own text in its place, and the edit belongs in the app.
• Add FAQs from real questions. Use the questions customers email you, and answer them with facts from your own product text.

Themes ship with demo text, and some of it ends up live. A common leftover is a demo FAQ block with its placeholder text still in place. Search your pages for placeholder text, and hide or replace the section.

• View the page source of a few products and confirm the title and meta description are what you entered.
• Search engines can rewrite titles and descriptions based on the page, so what shows in Google can differ from what you typed (Shopify Help Center).
• Shopify generates your sitemap.xml, robots.txt and canonical tags on its own, so you don't need an app for those (Shopify SEO overview).
• Connect Google Search Console before you start, and note the numbers. That's your baseline.

If you'd rather we run this list on your store, see Shopify SEO for small product brands. For WooCommerce stores, start at ecommerce SEO. If you also sell from a shop, POS website integration covers keeping your store's stock in step with the register.