I’ve noticed that many beginners getting into SEO in 2025 still struggle with the basics and often make mistakes that slow down their growth instead of helping it.
From what I’ve seen, some common issues include focusing too much on quick backlinks, ignoring content quality, and not paying attention to user experience or search intent.
I’d love to hear from experienced Shopify store owners and marketers here:
What SEO mistakes do you see beginners making most often today?
Which outdated strategies should be avoided in 2025?
What would you prioritize first if you were starting SEO from scratch now?
Looking forward to learning from your experiences and insights. Thanks in advance!
The biggest low-hanging fruit I look for in a store is keyword cannibalisation. A lot of store owners want to push one type of product hard, particularly if they’re a niche brand. However, if you’ve got multiple pages trying to appear for one keyword they clash with each other. Instead of one keyword ranking top you might have two keywords fighting to sit in 10th.
These issues are critical and they can be fixed overnight. A proper restructure with appropriate 301 tags, canonicals, and internal links can make important categories and products jump up the rankings overnight.
The takeaway: List out all of the most important keywords that your customers will search, and make sure you have one clear page that directly matches that search intent. If you have multiple pages that could or are clashing, make sure you set them up to make it obvious which one Google should rank.
I would say not focusing on AI assistants (AEO, GEO, whatever you want to call it) because it has the highest arbitrage in 2026.
There is some overlap but there are specific implementations that pertain to ranking higher on AI chat that stores aren’t implementing, that ultimately leaves money on the table.
Hello @sammysar, one common mistake beginners should avoid is applying SEO tactics without understanding the underlying principles.
As you mentioned, many people invest in backlinks without knowing how to evaluate them, leaving the process entirely to third parties. Another frequent issue is publishing articles based solely on high search volume and low competition metrics, even when those topics are completely irrelevant to the website’s actual products or services.
My primary advice is to study case studies from SEO experts and regularly review Google’s official search documentation. This is the best way to stay informed and execute SEO effectively
If you’re starting SEO in 2025, avoid focusing only on stuffing keywords. Write content that truly answers what people are searching for. Don’t publish thin or low quality posts just to increase page count. Quality always matters more.
Make sure your website works well on mobile and loads quickly, because most users browse on their phones. Avoid buying cheap backlinks, as they can harm your site instead of helping it.
Most importantly, be patient. SEO takes time. Keep improving your content, track your results, and stay consistent.
Here the common mistake I see on my clients and how to fix them :
What SEO mistakes do you see beginners making most often today? For blogs, they target high-volume informational keywords instead of transactional keywords first.
Which outdated strategies should be avoided in 2025? Inexpensive, non-thematic backlinks.
What would you prioritize first if you were starting SEO from scratch now? Brand search and user signals on the page, even more powerful than backlinks at the moment
SEO is fine, but as a Shopify merchant, keep in touch with Shopify updates & don’t miss the AI SEO update, and your store should be AI-optimized…It’s helpful to rank on Google SERP and an AI platform.
hey, one thing i noticed and also experienced before is ignoring real search intent and too focusing on high ranked keywords. Customers are very direct when they try to buy something. it means writing or optimizing your site according to what they really put in the search bar is more important than trying to stuff high ranking keywords in your blogs or discriptions.
Eli here from TinySEO (former TinyIMG). From my long experience - the SEO mistakes are the same in principle, but AI made them easier to commit at scale. People stuff bunch of content and think volume matters more than quality. With AI - that’s a lot easier now to get wrong.
What to avoid - keyword stuffing, buying backlinks from backlink markets, doing content exchanges just for the backlinks. Backlinks should add value.
If starting fresh, I would focus technical foundations first (speed, structure, schema) then build supporting content around your actual products - buying guides, comparisons, stuff that helps customers decide.
Hi, in my opinion, one of the most common mistakes I see people make in terms of optimizing SEO is not knowing how to use keywords correctly in their content or blog post. Most people just search up popular keywords relating to their business then just stuff as much keywords into their blog as possible which can reduce the context or quality of the content. I would say focus more on the quality of writing so that people reading it will perceive it as useful and would most likely return to that blog which is good for website retention. Once the quality or writing makes sense, then you can put keywords wherever relevant. Hope this helps.
The one I see most often that nobody talks about: targeting keywords your store has zero authority to rank for on day one.
New store owners find a keyword with decent volume, write a product page for it, and then wonder why they’re stuck on page 8. The issue isn’t the page — it’s that Google has no reason to trust a brand new domain for competitive terms yet.
What actually works early on is going after longer, more specific queries — not “leather wallet” but “slim leather wallet for men no coin pocket” type stuff. Less volume, yes, but real buyers use those searches and you can actually rank for them.
The other big one: duplicate meta descriptions across product variants. Shopify auto-generates these if you don’t write them, and if you have 40 color/size variants of the same product, you’ve got 40 near-identical pages competing with each other. Either write unique descriptions or use canonical tags to point them all to the main product URL.
Hey there! This is a great topic. From what I see, one of the biggest mistakes beginners make right now is simply failing to optimize their basic assets, like leaving product images uncompressed, or deleting old products and blogs without setting up proper redirects. This leads to a super slow website and lots of 404 error pages, which kills your ranking chances no matter how good your keywords are.
As for outdated strategies to avoid in 2025, definitely stay away from “keyword stuffing” (hiding a hundred keywords at the bottom of a page) or buying cheap, spammy backlinks. Google’s AI is incredibly smart now, and these old tricks will actually get your site penalized and lose you trust rather than pushing you up the ranks.
If I were starting completely from scratch today, my absolute number one priority would be high-quality content. Instead of trying to please the search engine, focus on writing genuinely helpful product descriptions, creating blog posts that answer real customer questions, and making sure your pages match exactly what the user is hoping to find. When your content actually provides real value and solves a problem for the shopper, the organic traffic and high rankings will naturally follow!
One mistake would be treating Meta titles and meta descriptions as an after thought. yes you can automate them with Claude <> Shopify integration. But this is your free advert on google so it should be treated as such if you want to take it seriously.
I would automate some but the top 20% of products and collections that make 80% of sales should be hand written.
i’d focus on matching one page to one keyword so you don’t compete with yourself. for new stores, long-tail keywords and solid technical basics like mobile speed and schema are your best bet
I’d probably put technical cleanup ahead of backlinks when starting from scratch. I’ve seen stores spend months trying to build links while they have collections that aren’t internally linked properly, duplicate pages getting indexed, or important products buried several clicks deep. Fixing the stuff you already control is a lot easier to measure too.
easy one to fix though!