Shopify SEO
Shopify gets the basics right out of the box. The trouble starts when a theme, a dozen apps and a few years of merchandising pile on top. Product URLs multiply, schema gets emitted twice, and a third-party script holds up the first paint. Most of that lives in Liquid and app settings, so an SEO who cannot open the theme can only describe it. We open the theme, and we ship the change.
Orange Collar Media: Established 2008, 800+ Magento builds. Our Shopify work runs through Shopify Plus, Shopify theme development and Shopify support and maintenance, so the person reading your theme has built one.
Three ways to work with us
| PRICE | WHAT YOU GET | |
|---|---|---|
| TECHNICAL SEO AUDIT | $2,500 to $5,000 fixed fee | A written audit of the store, every finding ranked, a fix described for each |
| MONTHLY RETAINER | $1,500 to $4,000 per month | Fixes shipped, content, and monitoring |
| MIGRATION SEO | Quoted per project | Redirect map, pre-launch checks and post-launch monitoring |
Audit price follows catalog size, the number of Markets and how many apps are installed. You get a fixed figure after a short look at the store, before any work begins.
What the Shopify audit covers
Duplicate product URLs
A product that sits in a collection can be linked at /products/blue-shirt and at /collections/shirts/products/blue-shirt. Which URL a canonical tag names depends on the theme's template code, so we do not assume it. We view source on real product pages reached both ways, check the canonical on each, and fix the internal links, sitemaps and app widgets that point at the longer path.
Structured data in the theme
Product, Offer, BreadcrumbList and Organization markup usually comes from the theme, from an app, or from both. Two sources means two Product blocks that disagree on price or availability. We read the Liquid, list what each source outputs, keep one, and make sure the values match what a shopper sees on the page.
Apps and Core Web Vitals
Reviews, popups, upsells and tracking tools each add JavaScript. We measure real templates, find which apps cost the most, and say whether the fix is removal, a lighter replacement, deferred loading or a theme change. Some apps leave code behind after you uninstall them, and we look for that too. If the theme is the bottleneck, see our Shopify theme development work.
robots.txt.liquid
Shopify lets you customize robots.txt through a robots.txt.liquid template (adding the template replaces Shopify's generated file). Internal search, sort parameters and cart-adjacent paths are common candidates. We change it carefully, because one wrong rule can hide a whole collection.
Faceted filters and collection pages
Storefront filtering adds parameters to collection URLs. Some stay out of the index and some do not, depending on the theme and the filter app. We decide which filter combinations deserve a page of their own, such as a brand or a material people search for, and keep the rest from becoming thin duplicates.
Markets and hreflang
Shopify documents that hreflang tags are included automatically through the content_for_header object. If you sell in more than one country or language, we confirm the tags render on your live pages, that each market points to its own version, and that currency or language switchers do not create crawl traps.
Collections, metafields and content
Collection descriptions, product titles and image alt text are where most merchants leave easy gains. We review templates and set up metafields so that good copy has a place to live and shows up where it should.
Keyword research and strategy
Every engagement starts with keyword research, and the output is a page-by-page target list. We map search demand to your collection and product pages. Collections usually take the broad, high-volume terms (a category, a brand, a material). Product pages take the specific ones (a model, a size, a part number). Ranking potential, margin and stock depth decide which pages we work on first, so effort goes to the collections that can pay back. The result is a prioritized sheet: page, primary term, supporting terms, the change to make.
AI search visibility
AI answer engines pull from pages that state facts clearly and carry accurate structured data. We clean up Product and Offer markup, add FAQ content where shoppers ask real questions, and write collection and product copy that can be quoted as written. We make no ranking promises for AI search or for Google.
What is not included
Link building is not included in any of our SEO services. If you need outreach or digital PR, we will say so and you should hire for it separately.
How the audit works
Send us the store URL. We look at the store, give you a fixed fee within the $2,500 to $5,000 range, and start once you agree. The audit is delivered in 2 to 3 weeks. You get a written report with every finding ranked and a described fix for each, plus the keyword target list. Then you choose: have us ship the fixes, hand them to your developer, or move to a retainer.
Monthly retainer
The retainer fits stores where the audit turned up more than one sprint of work, or where the catalog changes every week.
- Fixes shipped. We edit the theme and settings directly and deploy through your normal process. Your developer does not inherit a spreadsheet.
- Content. Collection copy, product template improvements and landing pages built around what people search for.
- Monitoring. Search Console errors, indexation, sitemap health and page speed, checked monthly. A written report goes out each month with what we shipped, what we found and what is next.
The price runs from $1,500 to $4,000 per month, based on the amount of work and the size of the store. Ongoing theme and app upkeep sits with our Shopify support and maintenance service.
Migration SEO: Magento to Shopify
Moving platforms changes every URL pattern. Magento category paths, .html suffixes and layered navigation parameters have no direct Shopify equivalent, and Shopify product, collection and page URLs follow a different structure, so old paths need mapping to new ones. Migration SEO is quoted per project and runs alongside Shopify migration.
- Redirect map. Every old URL gets a 301 to the page that answers the same search, not a blanket redirect to the home page. We build the map from a crawl, sitemap and Search Console data, then load it into Shopify.
- Before launch. Crawl both stores, compare titles, canonicals, structured data and internal links, and test redirects on the staging store.
- After launch. Re-crawl, watch Search Console for errors, confirm the new sitemap is clean, and look for redirect chains and soft 404s.
We wrote a longer walkthrough in our Magento to Shopify migration guide. If you are staying on Magento, see Magento SEO. On Shopify Plus, the same audit applies, with extra attention to checkout, multiple storefronts and custom domains. Details are on the Shopify Plus page.
What we will not promise
We do not guarantee rankings or traffic numbers. Nobody can, and an agency that does is guessing. We promise the audit findings, the fixes we ship and the monitoring we report.
Ready to start?
Send us the store URL. We will tell you which service fits and what it costs.
✦ QUESTIONS MERCHANTS ASK