Shopify Plus SEO: Complete Guide (2026)

Shopify Plus SEO improves the visibility of enterprise-level Shopify stores by focusing on technical SEO, content and keyword strategies, site architecture, and more. Learn how to boost your Shopify Plus SEO in this complete guide.

For enterprise online stores, Shopify Plus is the go-to ecommerce platform.

While it is a step up from standard Shopify plans and offers a range of additional capabilities, search engine optimization (SEO) becomes more complicated with larger catalogs.

The solution? Implementing effective Shopify Plus SEO.

What is Shopify Plus SEO?

Shopify Plus SEO is a search engine optimization strategy that helps large online stores become more discoverable in organic search results.

This process involves key techniques, including:

Technical SEO

• Site speed optimization
• Crawlability and indexation (robots.txt files, sitemaps, canonical tags)
• Fixing duplicate content
• Structured data

Keywords and content

• Targeting high-intent ecommerce queries
• Optimizing product and collection pages (titles, meta descriptions, headers)
• Creating valuable content (buying guides, blogs, landing pages)
• Internal linking

On-page SEO

• Optimizing URLs, headings, and product descriptions
• Image SEO (alt text and file names)
• Content creation that aligns with search intent

Site architecture

• Hierarchy for categories and collections
• Navigation optimization
• Internal linking

Off-page SEO

• High-quality backlinks
• Influencer and creator collaborations

International SEO (if applicable)

• Multi-language sites

Why Shopify Plus SEO is important

Shopify Plus SEO is important because it helps large ecommerce stores increase visibility in search results, drive high-intent traffic, and scale revenue.

“Many Shopify users believe their SEO is fully managed by the platform itself, but that’s not entirely accurate,” says Sam Yadegar, co-founder and CEO of HawkSEM.

“To really stand out, you must actively work on your site — optimizing content, title tags, layout, and more. Just setting up shop isn’t enough. Differentiation and strategic SEO efforts are key to rising above the competition.”

How to improve Shopify Plus SEO

Here is an essential SEO guide for Shopify Plus stores:

1. Optimize your Shopify store structure
2. Implement a comprehensive keyword strategy
3. Enhance product descriptions for SEO
4. Add structured data to your pages
5. Improve internal linking across your store
6. Regularly update content to keep it fresh
7. Use multilingual capabilities for global SEO
8. Build quality backlinks to your store
9. Monitor your SEO performance

1. Optimize your Shopify store structure

Your Shopify store should be easy for customers and search engines to find products.

To do this, create a clear hierarchy: Home page > Category pages > Product pages.

Each category should cover a distinct product range (for example, “Women’s Dresses” or “Bedding”). This makes it easy for shoppers to navigate and for search engines to index your site.

Every product page should be a click away from the home page or main category page to streamline the shopping experience.

Further reading: Website Architecture: What It Is + Best Practices

2. Implement a comprehensive keyword strategy

Using Google’s Keyword Planner (or similar keyword research tools), identify the search queries potential customers are searching for to discover your brand.

Integrate these keywords thoughtfully into your product titles, product descriptions, page title tags, meta descriptions, and URLs.

Further reading: How to Build a Keyword Strategy: 6 Easy Steps (+ Expert Tips)

3. Enhance product descriptions

Create unique and engaging SEO product descriptions that naturally incorporate your main keywords.

Focus on describing your product’s features and benefits in a way that’s relevant to your target audience, using language they may use to search for items online.

This helps search engines accurately index and rank your products. It also enhances the customer’s shopping experience by giving them the information they need to make informed purchasing decisions.

4. Add structured data to your pages

Structured data (also called schema markup) are snippets of code (or “labels”) you can add to the backend of your store to provide search engines with clear, organized information. This helps crawlers more accurately interpret and display your page content.

You can add schema markup to your product pages, blog posts, and reviews to enhance how your content appears in search results with rich snippets like star ratings, price, and availability.

This can increase your click-through rates (CTR).

Pro tip: Shopify Plus allows you to add structured data through its Liquid template language or third-party apps. Smart SEO is one of the best Shopify Plus SEO apps for this.

5. Improve internal linking across your store

Internal linking is the practice of connecting pages within your own website using hyperlinks to help guide users and search engines through your store.

Internal linking not only helps with navigation, it also boosts your pages’ SEO value by spreading link equity throughout your ecommerce site.

Further reading: How Does Internal Linking Help SEO?

6. Regularly update content to keep it fresh

Search engine algorithms favor websites with fresh, up-to-date content.

Regularly updating your product descriptions, blog posts, and landing pages signal to search engines that your site is relevant — which can lead to better rankings.

Also, fresh content keeps your audience engaged, encouraging repeat visits. Consider seasonal updates, new arrivals, and industry news as opportunities to refresh your content.

7. Use multilingual capabilities for global SEO

Shopify Plus supports multiple languages, enabling you to reach a global customer base.

Content localization improves user experience for international customers and also boosts your SEO in various regions.

You can create language-specific versions of your site to ensure search engines can index content in each language properly, increasing your visibility in international markets.

Implementing hreflang tags is key here. These guide search engines to serve the correct language version to visitors based on their location.

Using tools like Weglot is the easiest way to implement multilingual SEO. It takes care of everything from hreflang tags to metadata translation.

Further reading: What is International SEO? 6 Easy Steps + Examples That Work

8. Build quality backlinks to your store

Backlinks from reputable websites signal to search engines that your content is valuable, boosting your site’s authority and search rankings.

Focus on earning backlinks through high-quality content, partnerships, guest blogging, and influencer collaborations.

On the other hand, avoid purchasing links or participating in link exchange schemes, which can harm your SEO.

To implement an effective backlinking strategy:

• Focus on creating high-quality content
• Find “link roundup” opportunities
• Guest post on reputable sites
• Build relationships with other relevant websites, creators, and influencers
• Use broken link building
• Use pitching tools

9. Monitor your SEO performance

Shopify Plus has robust analytics designed to track your store’s performance, including marketing-related metrics.

(Image: shopify.com)

Use Shopify’s dashboard to monitor key performance indicators, such as traffic sources, customer behavior, and conversion rates — metrics that reflect the success of your SEO strategy.

For an even deeper analysis, integrate Google Analytics with your Shopify Plus store.

This combination offers a comprehensive view, enabling you to measure specific SEO outcomes, like organic search traffic, and track goals, such as purchases or sign-ups.

Together, Shopify Plus and Google Analytics provide a powerful suite of tools to refine your approach and boost your store’s online visibility based on SEO data.

Common Shopify Plus SEO issues (and how to fix them)

For enterprise ecommerce businesses, there are common issues that can negatively impact their search engine rankings.

Here are common SEO issues faced by Shopify Plus stores and how to fix them:

1. Duplicate content
2. Limited URL structure customization
3. Slow page load times
4. Improper 404 error management
5. Lack of flexible blogging capabilities

1. Duplicate content

Shopify Plus can inadvertently create duplicate content, particularly through its product pages, collections, and blog posts.

For example, a clothing store with a product page for a blue cotton t-shirt may be listed in two collections: “Summer Essentials” and “Eco-Friendly Cotton.”

In this case, Shopify Plus might create separate URLs for the T-shirt under each collection, like

• yourstore.com/collections/summer-essentials/blue-cotton-t-shirt
• yourstore.com/collections/eco-friendly-cotton/blue-cotton-t-shirt

Google’s approach to handling duplicate content involves clustering URLs with similar content and selecting the “best” URL to show in search results.

While this method consolidates link popularity and other properties to the chosen URL, the presence of duplicates can still dilute the overall SEO strength of your product pages.

A single, authoritative page for each product avoids confusion and maximizes SEO potential by focusing all relevance and authority on that primary page.

How to fix it

Use canonical tags to address duplicate content. These HTML elements tell search engines which version of a page is the primary one, preventing SEO dilution.

You can add a canonical tag in the <head> section of your duplicate pages, pointing to the original page URL. It typically looks like this:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://yourstore.com/collections/summer-essentials/blue-cotton-t-shirt”/>

It tells search engines to prioritize this page over similar ones.

Additionally, you can structure your site carefully to prevent duplicate content from being created in the first place.

Here’s how:

• Assign each product to one main collection where it fits best
• Use tags and filters wisely to avoid making new pages that aren’t necessary
• Regularly check your site to find and either combine duplicates or point them to the original content

2. Limited URL structure customization

You can’t change the structure of your Shopify Plus store’s URLs as freely as you’d like. Every product page URL must include “/products/” and every collection page must include “/collections/,” which Shopify automatically adds.

This setup can make it tricky to create a website structure that’s super clear and easy for your customers and search engines to understand.

Let’s say you sell handmade candles and want to set up a URL like yourstore.com/handmade-candles to showcase your collection.

In Shopify Plus, it automatically becomes yourstore.com/collections/handmade-candles, which is a bit longer and includes the mandatory “/collections/.”

How to fix it

Even though Shopify Plus sets these URL rules, you can still make your site easy to navigate and SEO-friendly.

Here’s how:

Use breadcrumb navigation

Breadcrumbs are little text paths on your pages that display where the page sits within the site hierarchy.

For example: Home > Candles > Handmade Candles.

This helps customers see where they are on your site and lets them easily jump back to previous sections. It also helps Google and Bing better understand the structure of your site.

Keep your URLs clean and keyword-rich

Focus on the parts of the URL you can control, like the slugs after “/collections/” or “/products/.” Make these as short, clear, and descriptive as possible.

Using our example, you can’t remove “/collections/,” but you can make sure the rest of the URL is optimized, like “/collections/handmade-candles” instead of “/collections/product-type-candles-001.”

Organize your site logically

Group similar products together in collections that make sense and create menus that guide visitors through your site smoothly.

This will improve UX and boost your SEO by showing search engines that your site is well-organized.

3. Slow page load times

Page speed is an important factor for both ecommerce SEO and user experience.

Shopify Plus stores often have high-resolution images and numerous scripts for functionality, which slow their loading time.

This frustrates users and can negatively impact your rankings in search engine results.

How to fix it

Start by evaluating your site’s current load time with Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

Then, take the following steps:

Compress your images

Large, high-quality images look great but can slow your site down. Before you upload photos of your products, use a tool like Adobe Photoshop to make the file size smaller.

This reduces load time without losing image quality.

Implement lazy loading

Lazy loading means pictures and videos on your site only load as someone scrolls to them — not all at once when the page opens.

This can make your initial page load much quicker, keeping your visitors engaged from the moment they arrive.

Choose a responsive design

A responsive theme adjusts your ecommerce store’s layout to fit the screen it’s being viewed on. This speeds up loading time on mobile devices and improves how your store looks and functions across all devices.

Clean up your apps and scripts

Get rid of any apps or custom scripts you are using but don’t need. This will declutter your site’s backend and boost its speed.

4. Improper 404 error management

404 errors happen when your Shopify Plus store has links to pages that don’t exist anymore.

These kinds of errors can negatively impact your store’s ranking in search results.

How to fix it

Regularly check for broken links using Google Search Console. Treat it like routine maintenance to ensure everything works smoothly. If you found a 404 error, here are two simple fixes:

• Update the link If the missing page has a new location
• Redirect the old link to a similar page or your homepage through Shopify’s admin panel if the page is removed

To set up a redirect, head to the “Online Store” > “Navigation” section in your Shopify admin dashboard and choose “View URL redirects.” There, you can easily add redirects.

This way, instead of hitting a dead-end, customers are smoothly guided to relevant content, which keeps their shopping experience positive and your site’s SEO strong.

5. Lack of flexible blogging capabilities

Shopify Plus offers a blogging platform, but it may not have all the features in specialized content management systems (CMSes) like WordPress.

It lacks several advanced features crucial for effective digital marketing for ecommerce, such as on-page SEO settings for control over its search results appearance, design customization to align with your brand’s style, and robust content organization tools like tagging and categorizing for better user navigation.

These limitations might impact your ability to rank well on the search engine result page (SERP) and engage your audience effectively.

How to fix it

You can integrate an advanced CMS like WordPress that supports your marketing and SEO strategy.

WordPress offers comprehensive SEO customization, extensive design options, and superior content organization capabilities — enhancing your blog’s search rankings and user engagement.

Simply set up your blog on WordPress, then link it back to your Shopify store. This ensures a seamless experience for your audience, leveraging WordPress’s powerful blogging tools while maintaining Shopify’s robust ecommerce functionality.

Further reading: 8 Must-Haves for an SEO-Friendly Blog

Best Shopify Plus SEO apps

Shopify Plus stores often need more advanced tools to scale SEO efforts efficiently.

Here are five of the best Shopify apps or plugins:

1. SearchPie
2. Plug In SEO
3. Smart SEO
4. SPO – SEO Product Optimizer
5. SEO Content Blocks

1. SearchPie

SearchPie offers a comprehensive solution for page optimization and speed enhancement of Shopify stores.

Its suite includes SEO reports to detect issues, traffic boosters (like rich snippets and backlink support), and speed optimization through image compression and AMP implementation.

SearchPie simplifies complex SEO tasks with AI-driven tools, aiming to improve rankings and customer acquisition.

Its features, like the SEO content generator and website credibility protector, are tailored to make SEO manageable for beginners and advanced users alike.

Price: Starter – Free, Premium – $39/month, Enterprise – $99/month

2. Plug In SEO

Plug In SEO simplifies the SEO process for Shopify store owners, offering a user-friendly platform to detect and fix common issues.

It provides site audits, templates to rank for target keywords, and structured data support to enhance search rankings.

The app provides clear instructions to optimize your store, which makes it ideal for those new to SEO.

With its focus on improving search rankings and customer satisfaction, Plug In SEO features are practical for stores to increase their traffic and sales through better SEO practices.

Price: Starts at $29.99/month after a 14-day free trial

3. Smart SEO

Smart SEO is designed to automate and simplify ecommerce website optimization on Shopify. It offers features like AI-generated meta tags, image optimization, and structured data support for better understanding by search engines.

Its automated features reduce the manual workload, making SEO tasks more manageable and less time-consuming.

For Shopify Plus stores looking to enhance their search ranking without extensive SEO knowledge, Smart SEO provides an easy-to-use solution that covers key SEO areas efficiently.

Price: Free plan available, Pro – $14.99/month, Business – $24.99/month, Premium – $49.99/month

4. SPO – SEO Product Optimizer

SPO optimizes Shopify stores for better search engine and social media presence.

It identifies niche keywords with search volume data, sets up structured data for rich search result previews, and customizes social link previews.

SPO is particularly useful for stores refining their SEO strategy with targeted keywords and improving their social media sharing effectiveness. It offers tools that save time and enhance online visibility.

Price: Free – Lite version available, Basic – $15.99/month

5. SEO Content Blocks

SEO Content Blocks allows you to add SEO-friendly content sections to your web pages.

This app addresses Shopify’s limitations in URL structure and content optimization. It provides tools to easily insert and manage content blocks, FAQs, and more.

SEO Content Blocks is ideal for stores with a strong content-centric SEO strategy looking to boost their search visibility through enhanced content and site structure. It’s easy to use and doesn’t require coding knowledge.

Price: Basic – $5.99/month, Standard – $9.99/month, Premium – $19.99/month

Benefits of SEO for Shopify Plus stores

Here are some benefits of doing SEO for your Shopify Plus store:

• Increased visibility: You’ll appear higher in search results by optimizing your store. This makes it easier for potential customers to find you when searching for products you offer.
• Higher quality traffic: SEO attracts visitors interested in your products. These visitors will more likely engage with your site and convert into customers.
• Cost-effective marketing: Once set up, SEO provides a steady stream of organic traffic without the costs associated with paid advertising. It’s a long-term strategy that pays dividends over time.
• Enhanced user experience: SEO involves improving your site’s structure and content, making it easier for customers to navigate. A better user experience results in higher satisfaction and more sales.
• Improved conversion rates: SEO not only brings more traffic but also optimizes your site to encourage purchases. This leads to improved conversion rates and revenue.
• Competitive advantage: A well-optimized Shopify Plus store can outrank competitors in search results, giving you an edge in the market. It captures more market share by being the first choice for customers.

How much does Shopify Plus SEO cost?

Shopify Plus alone costs around $2,500 per month for a year-long contract. To hire an experienced agency to manage a Shopify Plus store’s SEO, it will typically cost between $1,500 and $5,000 per month — depending on the size of your store and SEO needs.

The takeaway

“Shopify Plus gets a lot of things correct right out of the box, like automatic sitemaps and mobile-friendly pages,” says Yadegar.

“But it also has some limitations. This is where having a deep understanding of the platform, SEO, and marketing at large becomes essential.”

HawkSEM is one of the fastest emerging digital marketing agencies, offering end-to-end ecommerce marketing services, including Shopify SEO.

With a large team of ecommerce experts specializing in SEO and content marketing, we empower clients with creative and strategic directions, enabling their online growth and top-line revenue.

If you want help, contact us for Shopify Plus SEO services.

This article has been updated and was originally published in July 2024.