Shopify SEO checklist: 32 checks for your store

This checklist covers the SEO checks that matter for a Shopify store, in the order to do them: setup first, then technical, then collection and product pages, then content and AI answers. Each item is a yes or no. Fix every "no" in the first two sections before moving on, because content cannot rank on pages Google cannot crawl.

Each section links to a longer guide when a check needs more explanation. For the reasoning behind all of it, start with the SEO for Shopify guide. For a checklist that applies to any site, see the general SEO checklist.

Setup

• The storefront password is off.
• A primary domain is set, and the other domains (including www or the bare domain, and .myshopify.com) redirect to it.
• The store is verified in Google Search Console.
• sitemap.xml is submitted in Search Console. See Shopify sitemap and robots.txt.
• The store is verified in Bing Webmaster Tools.
• The home page title and meta description are set in Online Store > Preferences.

Technical

• Product cards link to /products/handle, not /collections/name/products/handle.
• Each page has exactly one canonical tag, and no app overrides Shopify's.
• robots.txt is the default, or you know why each custom rule is there.
• Deleted and renamed products redirect to the closest product or collection. See Shopify redirects.
• Search Console's Pages report shows no important product or collection pages excluded.
• Product and collection pages pass Core Web Vitals on mobile in real-user data. See Shopify speed optimization.
• Apps you no longer use are uninstalled and their leftover theme code removed. See Shopify SEO apps for which ones to keep.
• Each product page has one valid Product structured data block, checked in Google's Rich Results Test.
• Breadcrumbs are visible and marked up on products and collections.
• No broken internal links (a site audit finds these).

Collections and products

• Each important collection targets one search, such as "ceramic mugs", and its title tag starts with it.
• Each important collection has a unique meta description. See Shopify meta descriptions.
• Each important collection has a short paragraph of real copy that helps a buyer choose.
• Product descriptions are your own words, not the manufacturer's text.
• Product titles say what the item is in the words buyers use.
• Every product image has descriptive alt text.
• Tag and filter pages with no unique copy are not linked from the main navigation.
• Products have reviews on the page, in the HTML, marked up for stars.
• Out of stock products stay live with a note, unless they are gone for good.

Content

• You have a list of the questions buyers ask before they buy, sized by search volume.
• The blog answers those questions, with each post linking to the products that fit. See Shopify blog SEO.
• Collection and product pages link back to the guides that help people choose.
• About, shipping, returns and contact pages exist and are easy to find.

AI answers

• robots.txt does not block AI search crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot.
• Product, collection and blog pages answer the main question in the first paragraph.
• Your store appears on the third-party reviews and "best of" lists that AI answers cite for your category. See answer engine optimization.

Running the checks

About half of these you can only check by looking: copy quality, titles, whether a collection targets the right search. The rest a site audit checks across every page at once, including canonicals, redirects, structured data, broken links, missing alt text and slow pages.

zaDojo's site audit runs these checks and supports Shopify's crawler access signatures, so the crawl is not rate-limited partway through. You can run it from the app or ask an AI agent to run it through the zaDojo MCP server and turn the results into a fix list. The main Shopify guide shows how to add a signature.

Rerun the audit after a theme change, a large import or a new app, since those are when things usually break.

Questions people ask

Does Shopify handle SEO automatically? Partly. Shopify handles your sitemap, robots.txt, SSL and canonical tags. Titles, copy, speed, redirects and app clean-up are still yours, which is most of this checklist.

Which checks should I do first? The setup and technical sections. A storefront password, a blocked page or a deleted product with no redirect stops Google before any copy can help.

Do I need an app to run these checks? No. The Shopify admin, Search Console and Google's Rich Results Test cover most of them. A site audit is faster for the checks that repeat on every page, such as canonicals, broken links and missing alt text.

How often should I rerun it? After a theme change, a large product import or a new app, since those are when things usually break.