My Shopify SEO Review: Ideal for Your Online Store in 2024?

If you click to purchase a product or service based on our independent recommendations and impartial reviews, we may receive a commission. Learn more

Keen to create an online store with Shopify? Before you begin, it’s worth double checking the platform’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tools first. You need to make sure that they’ll help your website rank well in search engines like Google, and are well-suited to your business’ long-term goals

To help you find out how effective Shopify’s SEO features could be for your online store, I’m going to explore the platform’s best tools, how you can use them, and where they fall short. Let’s get started below.

At a Glance: Shopify SEO Pros & Cons

If you want to create an online store that ranks well on search engines, Shopify is an apt choice for your business. Coming with key SEO features – such as URL redirects, image optimization, and alternative text input – the platform makes it straightforward to get the ball rolling.

Of course, that doesn’t mean Shopify’s SEO features don’t have any flaws. I’ve explored its pros and cons below:

Shopify SEO Pros Shopify SEO Cons
✔️Basic SEO is built in – If you’re an SEO beginner, you won’t have to worry about optimizing your website yourself. Shopify generates most of your store’s SEO automatically, like its canonical tags or meta titles. Can be over reliant on apps – To access more SEO features, you might need to download numerous apps for your store. However, having too many apps installed can slow down your website, or make it harder to keep track of your SEO data.
✔️Has SEO for different languages – If you’re selling products in other countries, Shopify’s SEO can optimize your site for searches in various languages by generating your website’s hreflang tags for you. Not the best for advanced SEO – Shopify isn’t the best SEO platform if you want to make advanced changes to your website’s code. For example, you can’t manually edit your website’s sitemap to fix or remove broken links.
✔️Integrate with other platforms – Shopify also lets you connect your store with other platforms that can help you track your website’s SEO in more depth, such as Google Analytics 4 and Semrush’s ecommerce booster.

Shopify’s Key SEO Features

Since I’ve already mentioned Shopify’s SEO features, it’s time to explore them in more detail. Below, I’ve listed 14 of the most important SEO features you’ll find on Shopify:

1. SSL Encryption (HTTPS)

All Shopify stores come with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), which is a necessary part of your website’s security. An SSL certificate encrypts the data sent between your website’s server and a browser, preventing hackers from accessing valuable info like credit card information.

Not having SSL Encryption can impact your website’s SEO, since search engines will often penealize websites that don’t have this additional layer of protection. You’ll be able to spot when a Shopify website is secure, since the beginning of the URL will contain a “HTTPS” instead of a “HTTP.”

The Sanrio homepage, with a screen open showing a secure padlock sign next to the URL.
I could tell that Sanrio (a Shopify-powered store) had SSL security. When using Google Chrome, I noticed the padlock icon that confirmed that the website’s connection was secure. Source: Website Builder Expert

2. Robots.txt

Google wouldn’t be able to discover your Shopify Store and its various pages without robots.txt. This is a file that lets Google’s bots access different page URLs on the web and index them in search results. Thankfully, all Shopify stores do come with a default robots.txt file, so you won’t need to add one yourself.

Screenshot of a robots.txt file from the Kylie Cosmetics website
You can find a website’s robots.txt file by adding “/robots.txt” behind its domain name in the search bar. I found that the Kylie Cosmetics Shopify store had a robots.txt file using this method. Source: Website Builder Expert
Top Tip: If you want to, you can edit the code in your robots.txt file on Shopify. You might need to do this later on to prevent search engines from crawling specific pages, especially if they’re unfinished or private. However, unless you have technical experience already, I’d recommend getting a professional to do this for you. Your website could stop working properly if it’s done incorrectly!

3. Sitemaps

Shopify automatically generates your website’s sitemap for you, which is a list of all of your store’s pages (like product pages and blog posts) and how they’re structured. These sitemaps are helpful for search engines like Google, since they use them to crawl and index your website’s content.

However, the big downside to Shopify’s sitemaps is that you can’t customize them easily. For instance, if you find a broken URL on your website that needs to be updated, then you can’t fix it by manually editing your sitemap.

This is fine if you run a small online store with a few key pages, but it can be a problem as your store scales. If you own a large website that’s organized into multiple subsections, you may feel frustrated by this lack of control over your sitemaps.

Screenshot of a sitemap for the Adored Vintage website
I could view the sitemap for Adored Vintage, a Shopify-powered clothing store, by adding “sitemap.xml” at the end of its homepage URL. It showed me how each page is organized on its website. Source: Website Builder Expert

4. Structured Data

Structured data is code that search engines use to understand a page’s content for easier viewing in results pages. For instance, if a product page contains a star rating between one and five, Google might showcase this star rating in the search results too – which counts as a form of structured data!

Basic structured data is available on most Shopify themes, so Google will be able to find key information like a product’s name, price, and description and display these details on search results.

However, if you need to make more advanced changes, like adding FAQ structured data for search or updating product information for accuracy, you’ll need to edit your website’s code manually or download a Shopify app like JSON-LD Express instead. This can be a long-winded, technical process, so I recommend hiring a professional for this.

Screenshot of a Google results page showcasing images of coffee machines and their schema markup star ratings
Here’s a visual example of what I explained above. When searching for the best coffee machines, Google presented me with these popular products and their overall star ratings on search. Source: Website Builder Expert

5. Canonical Tags

To prevent duplicate content from appearing on your website and impacting your page rankings, Shopify automatically generates canonical tags for you. These tags tell search engines when a page is a copy of another page, making sure that any search rankings are credited to original pages only.

Screenshot of the Cécred homepage with its code on the left of the screen showcasing it's canonical tags data
When inspecting Beyoncé’s hair care brand, Cécred, I could see that Shopify had generated canonical tags for this page based on the code. Source: Website Builder Expert

6. Optimized Website Speeds

According to Google’s Core Web Vitals, slow loading times can negatively impact your website’s SEO. In fact, the typical page load time for websites that appear in Google search results is a speedy 1.65 seconds.

If you’re concerned about your website’s speed, you can assess your load times on Shopify’s dashboard. I could see how speedy my website’s load times were by:

  1. Scrolling down to the analytics section of my dashboard.
  2. Clicking on “Reports.”
  3. Finding and selecting the “Web Performance” metric.

From this page, I could then view key metrics about my website’s performance, such as its Largest Contentful Paint score (how long it takes for the largest content on a web page to load) and its Interaction to Next Paint score (how responsive an interface is when a user first clicks on it).

If your website load times are slow, Shopify will provide you with suggestions on how to improve its performance. I was given sound advice on the dashboard, such as uninstalling unused apps and optimizing my store’s photos.

Screenshot of PageSpeed insights showcasing a website's performance
From the “Web Performance” section, I could also click on a link to “PageSpeed Insights.” This page gave me a useful overview of my test website’s performance and its average load times. Source: Website Builder Expert
Top Tip: If you want to, you can edit the code in your robots.txt file on Shopify. You might need to do this later on to prevent search engines from crawling specific pages, especially if they’re unfinished or private. However, unless you have technical experience already, I’d recommend getting a professional to do this for you. Your website could stop working properly if it’s done incorrectly!

7. Optimized Images

Image optimization also plays a crucial part in your website’s load speeds. Because of this, Shopify uses its Content Delivery Network to automatically compress file sizes and detect the best file formats for your imagery, which does help speed up your online store.

Screenshot of Shopify's CDN optimization page demonstrating how it optimizes images on a site
I could test out Shopify’s CDN from its website, which demonstrated how exactly it compresses file sizes to speed up your store. Source: Website Builder Expert

8. Multilingual Support

If you’re selling across the globe, your website’s SEO will need to be optimized for different languages. Shopify does this for you by automatically adding hreflang tags to your content. These tags help search engines identify any additional languages on your website, making it simpler to index them in different countries.

Screenshot of the Shopify dashboard showing you where to review a website's languages
I could organize my test website’s languages from my Shopify dashboard. It also encourages you to download the Shopify Translate & Adapt app, allowing you to translate your website’s pages. Source: Website Builder Expert

9. Mobile-First interface

Another key aspect of Google’s Core Web Vitals is the importance of mobile-first design, which can also impact how users interact with your Shopify store. In fact, 79% of users go back to the search results page if the first website they click on isn’t mobile-friendly.

Overall, most of Shopify’s themes are mobile-responsive and can be edited in mobile view. However, it’s worth noting that some themes are more mobile-friendly than others. I recommend testing out different Shopify themes before you commit to one, ensuring that they look great and are fully responsive on desktop and mobile devices.

Screenshot of Shopify's mobile view from the website editor showcasing its interface
When using Shopify’s “Canyon” theme, I could adjust parts of my mobile layout’s padding and spacing. However, it didn’t let me make more drastic changes to the layout, which did feel limiting. Source: Website Builder Expert

10. Meta Titles & Meta Descriptions

Your Shopify store’s meta titles and meta descriptions will appear on search engine results pages, and are used to help users understand what’s on each of your web pages. To clarify, here’s a quick definition of both:

  • Meta title – is a web page’s title as it appears on search
  • Meta description – is a short description that summarizes the contents of a web page

You’ll want these to be short and snappy, but also intriguing enough to get the user to click on the page. When testing out the platform, I could change page meta titles and meta descriptions from my Shopify store by:

  1. Scrolling down to “Sales Channels”
  2. Clicking on “Pages”
  3. Selecting the page I wanted to tweak for SEO
  4. Then, tapping “Edit Website SEO”
Screenshot of a Shopify dashboard screen allowing you to change meta titles and descriptions
Shopify made it easy for me to write a meta title and meta description straight from the dashboard. It also gave me a strict character limit to stop me from waffling. Source: Website Builder Expert

11. Custom URLs

When editing your website, you might want to change a specific URL so that it better represents a page’s content. For example, example.com/article/shopify-seo-review is much more informative than example.com/hds73tgha. If you’d like to do this on Shopify, you’re in luck, since it lets you create SEO-friendly custom URLs for different pages.

From the same place where I tweaked the meta title and meta description, I could scroll down and adjust a page’s URL. Once I was happy with the design, I clicked save to confirm.

Screenshot of Shopify's dashboard showcasing a box to place your custom URL
Shopify also did a quick URL redirect for me, ensuring that the contents of the old URL was moved to the new URL – keeping the process seamless. Source: Website Builder Expert

12. Alternative Text

To stay aligned with SEO best practice and make your website accessible, you need to add alternative text to your website’s imagery, which is a short snippet of text that describes what an image depicts. Visually impaired website visitors can use it to understand the contents of an image, while it’s also handy if the imagery on your website doesn’t fully load.

I could add alternative text to each photo on my Shopify website. From the editor, I double clicked on a photo and then selected it in the sidebar. All I needed to do next was add a short, concise description of what was contained in the photo.

Screenshot of a photo on the Shopify editor and a place to add alt text
When adding my alt text, I made sure that it accurately described what was featured in my photo. Remember, it’s meant to be as useful as possible to your website's visitors! Source: Website Builder Expert

13. Optimized Headings

Having a readable website is an important part of SEO. It helps website visitors digest your content and makes it easier for Google to crawl your site and understand the meaning behind each of its pages.

An easy way to increase your website’s readability is to add headings, such as H1s, H2s, H3s, and so on, to break up the text on a page. I could successfully add headings to my Shopify website in the editor by double clicking on a text box, then selecting one of the heading options from the dropdown menu.

Screenshot of Shopify's website editor, with a homepage and text box that states "why shop from amazing metals?"
I had to double click on a text box and then select a heading from the sidebar’s dropdown. I couldn’t, however, edit directly inside the text box, which didn’t feel 100% intuitive. Source: Website Builder Expert

14. AI Generated Product Descriptions

When creating your website’s product descriptions, you’ll want to feature targeted keywords relating to your audience and niche. However, if you struggle to write product copy, you might choose to use Shopify Magic to generate the text for you.

Released in 2023, the tool allows you to generate SEO-friendly descriptions based on the key product features you’d like to mention.

Though this is a useful tool, I don’t recommend relying on it since it could actually impact your website’s SEO. In Google’s previous algorithm updates, the company mentioned that it was cracking down on unoriginal, AI-generated content. So, if you use this tool, always edit the text it generates to ensure that it sounds “human.”

Screenshot of a product page from the Shopify dashboard showcasing its AI generated text feature
When using the AI tool, I typed in the targeted keywords that I wanted to include. The text it generated was good, but it definitely didn’t sound natural. Source: Website Builder Expert
Top tip: In 2023, Shopify partnered with SEMrush to create an ecommerce booster that you can use to audit and optimize your product pages. I recommend integrating it with your store, since it’ll tell you where you can make key SEO improvements, be it increasing your page speed or tweaking your product photos.

Shopify Analytic Tools for SEO

As you work on your Shopify SEO, you’ll also need to keep track of your website’s key performance metrics. This way, you can set targets, measure your store’s performance, and create an action plan if you identify any areas for improvement.

What I liked most about Shopify’s SEO features is that it tracks numerous metrics that you can access directly from the dashboard. To get started, I clicked on the “Analytics” button in the left hand sidebar, and then selected “reports.” From there, I found data on key metrics that are valuable to SEO, such as:

  • Sessions via location – Tells you the locations that your website visitors are coming from. This is especially useful if you’ve implemented local SEO, since you’ll be able to tell if your visitors are coming from your target locations.
  • Web performance –Tells you how well your website is performing based on technicalities like speed, interactivity, and visual stability.
  • Sales by channel – Tells you where your website’s sales are coming from, be it organic search or social media channels.
  • Search conversions over time – Tells you how well your website is converting based on different periods of time. You might want to track how high your click rate is, or how often people are making purchases.
  • Top online store searches – Tells you which search terms your customers are using to find products on your store.
Screenshot of the Shopify dashboard's reports page listing key website metrics
Once I’d found all of the metrics I wanted to use to track my online store’s SEO, I could pin them to my “Reports” page for easy access. Source: Website Builder Expert
Top Tip: Want to see how well your Shopify store is performing in real-time? Below “Reports,” you can click on “Live View” to see what your website’s current visitors are up to. It’ll show you their core behaviors, like if they have an active cart or are in the process of checking out.

Can I Connect My Shopify Store With Google Analytics?

You can! In fact, I recommend connecting Google Analytics 4 with your Shopify store to

access another set of analytics – giving you more ways to track your website’s SEO performance.

To do so, you’ll already need to have both a Google account and a Google Analytics 4 account. Then, you’ll need to create a new Google Analytics property and add the tags to your Shopify website. You’ll find detailed instructions in Shopify’s Help Center.

Screenshot of Google Analytics 4 showcasing a graph and key metrics
The Google Analytics demo account gave me a taster of the metrics you’ll find. You could track how many views your store’s promotion has gotten, or see who your predicted top spenders are. Source: Website Builder Expert

Shopify SEO Apps

Shopify might have key SEO features built into its ecommerce builder already, but you can add even more SEO capabilities to your website through the App Store. Currently, the Shopify App Store houses thousands of extensions to choose from, with many third-party providers offering free, paid, or trial plans to get started with. 

Here are a few Shopify SEO apps you might find of interest:

App Name Overview Costs Key Features
Tiny Img Optimize your store’s images and boost page speeds.
Free to $96/yr
•Optimize images
•Optimize file names
•Optimize alt text
•30-day backup
•24/7 support
Sherpas: Smart SEO Provides AI tools and automation to optimize your website’s SEO.
Free to $29.99/mo
•Generate meta titles and alt text
•Add structured data
•Detect and fix broken links
•Creates backlink reports
SearchPie SEO Gives you tools to boost your search rankings and organic traffic.
Free to $789/mo
•Creates full SEO reports
•Analyzes your website’s speed
•Generates detailed sitemaps
•Conduct keyword research
SEO Product Organizer Optimizes your store’s products for social media and assists with other SEO tasks like keyword research.
Free to $15.99/mo
•Customize product social link previews
•Suggests niche keywords for your industry
•Sets up structured data

Though these third-party apps are brilliant for an SEO boost, they do come with downsides. For instance, it’s a shame that you have to rely on additional apps, showing that Shopify’s built-in SEO tools aren’t completely all-encompassing. 

Additionally, having too many apps can make it difficult to keep track of your website’s SEO in one place (since you’ll be jumping between multiple touchpoints), can increase your website’s costs if you’re paying for multiple apps, and can slow down your store if you have too many installed.

Screenshot of the Shopify App Store and a list of apps with a short description and icon
I could head to the SEO section of the Shopify App Store to browse through its extensions. If you need help making a decision, I suggest looking through the user reviews first. Source: Website Builder Expert

Shopify SEO in Comparison

If you’re running an online store and want to optimize your search rankings, Shopify is a strong choice thanks to its built-in features. But how does it compare to other SEO website builders on the market?

Wix, our top-rated website builder, isn’t primarily built for online stores like Shopify is. However, you can still use Wix to create an ecommerce store that’s optimized for search. In our testing, Wix’s SEO scored just as highly as Shopify’s, also offering key features such as mobile-friendly websites, custom URLs, and meta descriptions.  

Screenshot of Wix's SEO checklist from the dashboard listing website next steps
Unlike Shopify, Wix has its own SEO setup that takes you through your website’s SEO step by step. This tool is useful if you are looking for a helping hand. Source: Website Builder Expert

Unlike Shopify, Wix has its own SEO setup that takes you through your website’s SEO step by step. This tool is useful if you are looking for a helping hand. Source: Website Builder Expert

Of course, since Shopify is a dedicated ecommerce platform, it’s still the best choice for your online store.

If you’re interested in other ecommerce platforms, you’ll want to look into BigCommerce’s SEO tools too. According to our testing, Bigcommerce’s SEO features cover as much ground as Shopify’s, minus the fact that you can’t optimize your store’s SEO in other languages – which is a big issue if you want to sell overseas.

Screenshot of the URL page on BigCommerce's dashboard
I liked that BigCommerce had a dashboard page dedicated to your website’s URLs. You can change your product URLs, category URLs, and web page URLS in one place. Source: Website Builder Expert

Shopify SEO Review: Conclusion

Overall, Shopify’s built-in SEO features are seamlessly integrated into the platform, making it easy for beginners to kick start their online store’s SEO. Many of the key features – such as sitemaps and canonical tags – are automatically generated by Shopify, so you don’t have to worry about adding these technical details to your website yourself.

However, Shopify’s SEO isn’t perfect, which is clear from the platform’s reliance on additional apps, and the lack of flexibility when it comes to advanced SEO like sitemap customisation. Make sure you weigh these pros and cons before making your final decision. 

Written by:
Holly Choules is a Writer at Website Builder Expert with a background in researching and crafting engaging content for digital platforms. In previous roles, she has demonstrated her wordsmith skills by writing for public facing brands in a range of industries. After gaining hands-on experience using leading website builders, like Wix and WordPress, she is now keen to share her findings through informative, easy-to-follow articles that help small business owners get online and grow their presence. Since joining the team in 2024 and transitioning into the tech sphere, Holly is passionate about applying her three years of content writing experience and upholding Website Builder Expert’s position as an authoritative source on website builders, ecommerce, and digital marketing.

7 comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *