For a newer Shopify store, what SEO changes gave you the biggest improvement? Product descriptions, blog posts, image alt text, page speed, backlinks, or something else?
For a newer Shopify store, the highest-leverage SEO moves roughly in order of impact:
- Collection pages → add keyword-rich descriptions; these rank for broader category terms that product pages can’t target
- Title tag structure → lead with the keyword, not the brand name
- Internal linking → blog → collection → product; builds hierarchy fast and costs nothing
- Image alt text → specific and descriptive, compounds over time especially for image search
- Blog content → target “how to style X” / “best X for Y” long-tails; takes 3-6 months but builds topical authority
- Page speed → convert images to WebP, audit app scripts; Shopify handles the rest
- Backlinks → highest long-term impact, slowest to build; start with supplier links and niche roundups
You can fix collection pages and title tags first. These are structural changes that pay dividends across every page. Then establish a consistent blog cadence (even 2 posts/month) targeting informational keywords. Backlinks become the bottleneck once on-page fundamentals are solid.
PS: +1 to @PieLab. They’ve shared some solid Shopify-specific SEO tactics worth checking out if you want to go deeper on the technical side.
Hope it helps!
Ellie from BOGOS: Free Gift Bundle Upsell team.
Hi Alia,
For a newer Shopify store, the biggest SEO improvements usually come from fixing the foundation before focusing heavily on backlinks.
I would prioritise:
- Clear collection and product-page titles based on what customers actually search for
- Unique product descriptions that explain the design, material, fit and intended buyer
- Strong collection descriptions instead of relying only on individual products
- Descriptive image file names and alt text
- Internal links between blog posts, collections and related products
- Fast mobile loading and compressed images
- Google Search Console setup to check indexing and search queries
Blog posts can help when they answer topics your target customers search for, such as gift guides, music-style inspiration or vinyl culture. Backlinks are valuable, but they work better after the store structure and content are properly optimised.
For a new store, I would start with collection pages and your most important products rather than trying to optimise everything at once.
Best of luck.
Hi @aliasmith
In my experience, technical SEO and site structure usually deliver the biggest improvements for a newer Shopify store.
- Optimizing collection pages with unique titles, descriptions, and proper H1 tags, as they often rank better than individual product pages.
- Writing unique product descriptions that focus on customer intent rather than using manufacturer content.
- Improving page speed and Core Web Vitals by optimizing images, reducing unused apps/scripts, and minimizing render-blocking resources.
- Strengthening internal linking between blogs, collections, and products to help both users and search engines navigate the site.
- Publishing helpful blog content that targets long-tail keywords and answers common customer questions.
Image alt text is important for accessibility and image search, but by itself it rarely has a significant impact on rankings. Similarly, backlinks become much more effective once the site’s on-page SEO and technical foundation are solid.
For most new Shopify stores, I’ve seen the best results from focusing on technical SEO, collection page optimization, page speed, and high-quality content before investing heavily in link building.
Best regards,
Devcoder 
Thanks Ellie for the kind shoutout! It’s a pleasure for us to share SEO tips with this awesome community.
Ellie’s list is absolutely spot on. I completely agree that optimizing collection pages and title tags gives the fastest results for a new store. I would just add one more thing to the top of that list: getting your technical foundation right from day one. Setting up perfect structured data (schema) and having zero broken links tells Google exactly what you are selling. If your site code is messy, even the best blog posts will struggle to rank.
Since managing all those technical details and compressing images by hand takes a lot of time, we highly recommend using SearchPie: SEO, Speed & Schema to handle it for you. It automatically builds your schema, fixes SEO errors, and speeds up your mobile pages in the background. It takes care of the boring technical work so store owners can focus entirely on writing great content and building those important backlinks.
Thanks again for the mention, and great advice!
One thing worth adding that’s less about what to optimize and more about how to know if it’s working: for a newer store, the single most useful habit isn’t picking the “right” SEO task first - it’s setting up Google Search Console before you start, if you haven’t already. Without it, you’re optimizing blind: you won’t know which pages are even indexed, which queries you’re already ranking for (even on page 2-3, which is where quick wins hide), or whether a change actually moved the needle.
In practice, the fastest early win for a lot of new stores isn’t writing new content at all - it’s checking Search Console for queries where you’re already ranking in positions 8- 20, then strengthening that specific page’s title/description/content to push it onto page 1. That’s usually much faster than starting a blog from zero, since Google already considers the page somewhat relevant - you’re nudging, not building authority from scratch.
Worth doing alongside the collection-page and technical work others mentioned, not instead of it - but it’s the piece that tells you which of those efforts is actually paying off.
Best,
Vikash Jha - Apploy
HI @aliasmith
For a newer store, the biggest improvement for me came from optimizing product pages rather than chasing backlinks or trying to publish lots of blog posts right away.
A few things that made the biggest difference were:
- Writing unique product descriptions that answered real customer questions instead of using manufacturer copy.
- Optimizing product titles and meta descriptions around the terms customers were actually searching for.
- Compressing images and improving page speed to create a better user experience.
- Adding descriptive image alt text, not because it dramatically improved rankings on its own, but because it made the site more accessible and helped image search.
- Building internal links between collections, products, and any helpful guides or FAQs.
Once those fundamentals were in place, creating helpful blog content started bringing in additional organic traffic, especially when it answered common questions related to the product.
I wouldn’t worry too much about backlinks in the beginning. I’d focus on creating a site that’s genuinely useful to visitors first. As your content gets shared and referenced, quality backlinks tend to come more naturally.
SEO is definitely a long-term strategy, but getting the on-page basics right early can make a noticeable difference over time.
Hey @aliasmith ,
For newer Shopify stores the biggest SEO improvements I’ve seen usually come from focusing on the fundamentals rather than trying to optimize everything at once.
My top three would be:
Write unique product and collection page content: Avoid using the manufacturer’s default descriptions. Original, helpful content that answers customer questions tends to perform much better over time.
Optimize collection pages, not just products: Well structured collection pages targeting broader search terms often become some of the strongest organic landing pages for ecommerce stores.
Build authority gradually: A handful of relevant, high quality backlinks from suppliers, partners, industry directories or genuine mentions can have a bigger long term impact than publishing dozens of low value blog posts.
Image alt text internal linking, and page speed are all worth doing, but I’d consider them supporting optimizations. If your store is already reasonably fast, I’ve found that unique content, clear site structure and earning relevant backlinks generally move the needle the most for a new store.
Thank You !
Great question, and honestly the answer changes depending on where your store is, but for a newer store there’s a pretty clear order of priority.
The foundation first - make sure every product has a properly written meta title and description. Shopify pulls defaults if you leave them blank, and those defaults rarely do a good job of telling Google what the page is actually about. Keep titles under 60 characters and descriptions under 160, lead with what the product actually is and who it’s for.
Page speed is also non-negotiable early on. A slow store hurts your rankings before you’ve even had a chance to build any. Compress your images, avoid loading too many third-party apps, and run your store through Google PageSpeed Insights to identify bottlenecks.
Product descriptions with naturally written keywords matter more than most new store owners think. Not stuffed, just written the way a real person would search for that product. Think about the specific phrases your customer types into Google and make sure those words exist naturally in your copy.
Image alt text is the one that consistently gets overlooked the longest and costs people the most in terms of missed organic traffic. Search engines and AI-powered search tools can’t see your images - they read the alt text to understand what’s in them. For newer stores especially, getting this right from day one means you’re building visibility from the start rather than having to go back and fix a full catalog later. For individual products, you can write these manually, but for anything beyond a handful of products it gets tedious fast - I built a free app called AltMaster on the Shopify App Store that handles it in bulk through a template system and auto-detects new products as you add them, worth checking out.
Backlinks and blog content are great but they’re a longer play. Get the on-page basics locked in first and you’ll see results a lot faster.
For newer stores, the quickest gains I’ve seen usually come from improving pages already getting impressions, rather than publishing lots of new blog posts.
- Open Google Search Console, filter queries ranking in positions 8 to 20, and update the matching page. Put the main phrase naturally in the title, H1, opening paragraph, and one internal link.
- Prioritize the top 3 to 5 collection pages. Add 150 to 300 words that explain product type, use case, materials, and key buying differences.
- Remove or disable unused apps, compress oversized images, and check mobile speed after each change.
- Fix broken links and add links from relevant blogs and products back to collections.
Alt text matters for accessibility, but I wouldn’t expect it alone to create a noticeable ranking jump. Backlinks and blogging come after these basics.
Hey there @aliasmith
Younger stores have most to gain by starting with product pages. Write unique product descriptions, use descriptive titles and meta description, include meaningful image alt texts, and enhance internal linking between collections and products. And make sure your store loads quickly and is easy to navigate on mobile. Regularly publshing useful blog content will also create long term organic traffic, but good product page optimization is often the quickest way to get results.
In my experience, one of the biggest SEO issues is actually optimizing product information and catalog pages. When you have hundreds of products, it’s easy to lose track of keeping everything complete and consistent.
And it’s not just the product information itself, but also the meta information — the title and description that can appear in Google when someone searches for a relevant keyword and your product page shows up in the results.
I’ve been using Product Pilot to automate a lot of this while still keeping myself in the loop for final approval, of course. I might be a little biased here since I’m the one who built it 
Another app I’ve used and really liked is SEOWILL – Page Speed Optimizer.
Overall, I think consistency across your product information is one of the things that can make a big difference for organic traffic espectially for new stores.
I’ve seen it myself after becoming more consistent with optimizing this, and the results were pretty good
Happy to answer any questions if you’re interested!
Good luck!