How to Set Up SEO on Shopify: The Basics That Actually Matter

Most Shopify stores are invisible on Google.

Not because the products aren't good. Not because the store looks bad. Because the SEO foundations were never set up. Or were set up once, badly, by someone following a YouTube tutorial from 2019.

SEO feels overwhelming until you understand what it actually is. It's just telling Google what your store is about, what your pages are about, and why your content is worth showing to someone searching for what you sell.

That's it.

There's a lot of noise around SEO. This isn't that. This is the foundational stuff that every Shopify store needs to have sorted before anything else. Get this right and you give Google something to work with. Skip it and you're relying entirely on ads and social to bring people in.

Which is expensive. And exhausting. And completely unnecessary when organic traffic exists.

Let's get into it.

What is Shopify SEO and why does it matter?

SEO stands for search engine optimisation. In plain terms, it's the work you do to help your store show up when someone searches for something you sell.

When someone types "handmade bags Australia" or "best skincare for dry skin" into Google, a set of results appears. The stores and pages that show up at the top didn't get there by accident. They got there because their SEO is doing its job.

The alternative is paid traffic. Which works. Until you stop paying. Organic traffic, built through solid SEO, keeps working even when you're not.

For a product-based founder, SEO is one of the highest-return investments you can make in your store. It takes time to build. But once it's there, it compounds.

Start here: your Shopify store settings

Before you touch a single product page, get your basic store settings right.

Go to your Shopify admin and head to Online Store, then Preferences. This is where you'll find your homepage title and meta description. These are the first things Google reads about your store. Most founders leave them as whatever Shopify defaulted to. Don't do that.

Your homepage title should include your primary keyword and your location if you're targeting local or Australian customers. Clear. Descriptive. Tells Google exactly what the page is about.

Your meta description won't directly affect your ranking, but it affects whether someone clicks. It shows up under your link in search results. Write it like a human. Make it specific. Give someone a reason to click on yours instead of the one above or below it.

Keep your title under 60 characters. Keep your meta description under 160. Google will cut them off if they're longer and you'll lose the message.

Title tags and meta descriptions for every page

Your homepage isn't the only page that needs this treatment. Every page on your store does.

Product pages, collection pages, your about page, your blog posts. Each one needs a unique title tag and meta description.

The title tag tells Google what the page is about. The meta description tells the human browsing search results why they should click on yours.

For product pages, include the product name, a relevant keyword, and your store name if space allows. For collection pages, focus on the category keyword. For blog posts, lead with the primary keyword naturally in the title.

In Shopify, you'll find these fields at the bottom of each page, product, and post editor under Search engine listing preview. Click Edit website SEO and fill them in properly. Every single one.

Yes, it takes time. Do it anyway.

URL structure: keep it clean

Shopify auto-generates URLs when you create pages and products. Sometimes they're fine. Sometimes they're a mess.

A good URL is short, readable, and includes the primary keyword for that page.

Good: yourstore.com/products/handmade-leather-tote-bag-australia Not good: yourstore.com/products/handmade-leather-tote-bag-brown-large-with-pockets-limited-edition-2024

Clean URLs are easier for Google to read and easier for customers to trust. When Shopify generates something clunky, change it before you publish. If the page is already live and getting traffic, changing the URL is riskier. Leave those ones alone unless you know how to set up redirects properly.

One more thing on URLs. Shopify adds /products/, /collections/, and /pages/ to your URLs automatically. You can't remove those. That's fine. Don't stress about it.

Image alt text: the thing almost nobody does

Google can't look at your product photos and know what they are. It reads the alt text instead.

Alt text is a short written description of an image. It tells Google (and screen readers) what the image shows. It's also another place to include relevant keywords naturally.

For every product image, write alt text that describes what's in the image and includes the product name or a relevant keyword. Not keyword stuffed. Just accurate and descriptive.

"Olive green linen tote bag with leather handles, handmade in Australia" is good. "bag green tote bag handmade bag Australia bag linen" is not.

In Shopify, you can add alt text when you upload images or by clicking on an existing image in your product editor. It takes thirty seconds per image. Most stores have never done it. That's your opportunity.

Internal linking: connect your store together

Internal links are links from one page on your store to another page on your store.

They do two things. They help customers navigate (which keeps them on your site longer). And they help Google understand the structure of your store and which pages are most important.

If you write a blog post about how to style a product, link to your relevant product pages within that post. If your about page mentions your product range, link to your collection page. If a product page mentions care instructions, link to a dedicated care guide if you have one.

It doesn't need to be complicated. Just think about where a reader might naturally want to go next and give them a way to get there.

Blog posts are particularly good for internal linking. Which is one of many reasons having a blog on your Shopify store is worth the effort.

A quick note on keywords

You can't do SEO without knowing what your customers are actually searching for.

Before you write a single title tag or meta description, spend some time on keyword research. Think about what someone would type into Google if they were looking for exactly what you sell. Then check whether people are actually searching for those terms using a free tool like Google Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest.

You're looking for keywords that are relevant to your products, have search volume (meaning people are actually searching for them), and aren't so competitive that a newer store has no chance of ranking.

For most product-based founders, a mix of broader keywords and more specific ones is the right approach. The specific ones are easier to rank for and often convert better because the person searching knows exactly what they want.

What about apps?

There are Shopify SEO apps out there. Some are useful. Most are not necessary if you've done the foundational work properly.

The one tool worth having is Google Search Console. It's free, it connects directly to your store, and it shows you exactly how your store is performing in search. Which keywords you're showing up for, which pages are getting clicks, and where there are problems worth fixing.

Set it up. Check it regularly. It's the closest thing to a direct line to Google that you have access to.

The honest truth about SEO timelines

SEO is not fast.

If you do all of this today, you won't see results tomorrow. Or next week. Organic search takes time to build and consistency to maintain.

What you will have is a store that Google can actually read, understand, and start to index properly. That's the foundation. Everything else — content strategy, backlinks, ongoing optimisation — builds on top of it.

Most founders skip the foundation and wonder why the rest doesn't work. Now you know what to actually do first.

Want this done properly without doing it yourself?

SEO setup is one of those things that sounds straightforward until you're three hours deep into your product pages and not sure if you're actually doing it right.

If you'd rather have it done once, done properly, and not have to think about it again — that's exactly what the SEO Setup offer is for. Keyword research, on-page optimisation, meta descriptions across your store, and Google Search Console connected and ready to go.

Book a free discovery call here.