Shopify SEO
Shopify search engine optimisation agency
Most agencies treat Shopify like any other ecommerce platform. They don’t understand its specific technical limitations or how to navigate them at scale.
As Shopify store owners ourselves, we do. We’ve built, scaled, and ranked our own brands at number one. We combine that first-hand commercial experience with technical SEO and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) to ensure your products are discoverable on Google and cited by AI engines.
BRANDS WE'VE HELPED
What is Shopify SEO?
Shopify SEO is the process of improving your store’s visibility across Google and generative AI engines like ChatGPT and Gemini. It requires leveraging Shopify’s built-in features while navigating its technical constraints such as fixed URL structures and code limitations.
Shopify SEO isn't just about keywords. It combines technical hygiene (managing crawl budget and site speed), content strategy designed for both users and AI citations, and authority building. As store owners, we focus on the specific levers that drive organic conversions and long-term search eligibility.
Shopify SEO That Drives Revenue
Not Just Traffic
Marketing investment is only as good as its contribution to your bottom line. With Shopify SEO, vague metrics aren't enough; you need clear ROI reporting at every stage of the funnel: Visibility for keywords and prompts, traffic from Google & LLMs, conversions from Google & LLMs.
We focus on optimising for the specific keywords and AI prompts with high commercial intent. Our framework ensures you have a transparent view of visibility, traffic, and conversions originating from both Google and LLMs. By aligning technical hygiene with a revenue-first content strategy, we move beyond "vanity" rankings to deliver measurable growth. It’s about ensuring your store is not just seen, but cited and selected by the audiences that convert.
Why Shopify
SEO is Different (And Harder)
SEO & GEO are built on three pillars: technical, content and off-page (backlinks). Together, these elements ensure your brand is discovered, understood, and elevated across search engines.
URL and Site Structure Limitations:
Shopify uses a flat URL hierarchy for /collections, /pages, and /products. This means a traditional sub-folder hierarchy cannot be implemented. Since URL structures are a key signal Google uses to understand your site, you have to work harder through internal linking strategy. This is the only way to show Google your hierarchy, manage your crawl budget, and ensure page prioritisation.
Technical SEO
As a SaaS platform, Shopify has built-in systems to manage canonicalisation, Hreflang, and other technical components. Generally, this can make technical SEO simpler to manage than other ecommerce platforms. However, Google still treats Shopify sites the same way it treats any other; if the technical foundation isn't monitored, performance will stall.
Collection and Product Hierarchy:
Managing how collections and products relate is critical. Without a custom approach to filtering and indexing, Shopify stores often struggle with duplicate content or thin pages that dilute your search authority.
Stop Relying on Basic Apps: Unearth Buried Revenue
Shopify apps are tools, not a strategy. A plugin cannot build a unique SEO framework that ranks your site in Google or secures citations in AI search.
Human intervention is now more critical than ever. Google’s frequent algorithm updates specifically target AI-generated spam; relying on automated plugins to "solve" your SEO puts your visibility at risk. While apps are useful for tactical tasks like managing Alt text, they cannot fully optimise a brand. True performance requires human expertise to deploy the right mix of strategy and AI assistance where it actually adds value.
The Real Problem
Why Most Shopify Stores Don’t Grow
We’re speaking from experience here. If you have a great product at a reasonable price but it isn't selling, it is likely down to your visibility in organic search. There are three critical types of organic search visibility for Shopify ecommerce:
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Organic Search Results: Ranking in standard Google listings.
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Organic Product Listings: Visibility within Google Shopping and Merchant Center.
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Visibility in LLMs: Being cited by engines like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity.
Your SEO strategy must ensure your products and brand are visible across all three areas. While Paid Search is a solid way to drive growth, your organic search fundamentals must be solid to maximise paid ROI. If you have weak product data and poorly optimised listings, you are unlikely to convert clicks from either organic or paid sources.
SEO strategies that
Drive conversion
Founded by award-winning performance marketers, we turn every click, impression, and visitor into measurable results. Everything we do is focused on conversion, so you get more leads, more sales, and more profit — without relying on expensive platforms taking their cut.
Strategy
We review your current Shopify website performance and benchmark it against your competitors. We identify winning strategies based on the specific keywords and AI prompts you are targeting as a business. From this, we create a roadmap of optimisation activities, including content creation, technical fixes, and link building.
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Implementation
We execute the roadmap as planned. We produce content against an agreed calendar, optimise your priority pages, and build high-authority links for your Shopify store. The volume of these activities is scaled based on your specific commercial targets and budget.
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Iteration
We report monthly to identify which individual activities drove the best results. We feed this data back into the strategy and iterate on our plan. This ensures our time is always directed toward the highest-impact activities that move the needle for your bottom line.
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Built for High-SKU Shopify Stores
Scaling SEO for large product catalogues requires a move away from manual, page-by-page optimisation. If you have thousands of SKUs, individual tweaks are inefficient and fail to move the needle on site-wide authority. Instead, we help businesses categorise and map products against high-opportunity topics to maximise visibility potential.
Our Core Shopify
SEO Services
We offer full-Service Shopify SEO support delivered in a one-off project or through a monthly retainer
Shopify SEO Auditing
One of our most common projects is a Shopify SEO (and GEO) Audit. This involves an analysis of all components affecting your visibility in Google and LLMs. From the audit, we create a roadmap and optimisation plan for your business to implement.
Shopify SEO Migrations
Migrations are critical when launching a new website or changing domains. When a site changes significantly, Google re-indexes the content, which results in ranking fluctuations. In nearly every scenario, traffic drops temporarily; how quickly it returns depends entirely on how well the migration is planned and executed.
Shopify Content SEO
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Collections and Products content strategy: Collection page optimisation is often a core focus, as these are the key transactional pages optimised for high-intent keywords and prompts where users are most likely to buy.
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Blogs and Pages content strategy: We optimise for both LLM citations and Google rankings. With the rise of AI Overviews and zero-click search, visibility is still critical, but how we optimise has evolved to meet these new requirements.
Shopify Technical SEO
Strong technical hygiene is a requirement. We focus on site speed, indexability, crawlability, and structured data. It is our job to ensure Google and LLMs can understand your website, its content, collections, and products in the optimal way at all times. We run a monthly technical optimisation workstream to tackle and prioritise the highest-impact tasks.
Shopify Link Building
As with any SEO strategy, your website authority affects how likely your content is to rank. We create bespoke link-building strategies focused on Digital PR, aimed at amplifying the authority of your Shopify store.
Shopify SEO for AI Search (GEO)
As AI search use increases, Shopify is one of the safest ecommerce platforms to use in terms of discoverability. What do we mean by this? LLMs rely on structured data feeds to access your product catalogue. How well-organised your product data is in an ecommerce environment will directly impact your visibility in LLMs.
Shopify is already ahead of the market in terms of its integration with LLMs. Firstly, as a SaaS platform, it helps manage your feeds in an easy and understandable way. Secondly, Shopify Instant Checkout allows users to checkout from Shopify stores without ever leaving the ChatGPT interface.
Shopify is geared up to work seamlessly with AI tools from both a discoverability and conversion standpoint. Our job as a Shopify SEO and GEO agency is to maximise your visibility and drive conversions
The Buried Agency Process
Generic SEO strategies often fail on Shopify because they don't account for the platform's rigid architecture. A standard "best practice" approach won't solve Shopify-specific issues like indexation bloat from tags or the technical debt created by many popular apps. You need an agency that understands the platform’s nuances to drive real results.
For high-SKU stores, complexity scales quickly. Managing thousands of products requires a programmatic approach to metadata and a deep understanding of how to prevent collection filters from diluting your crawl budget. Without this specialist knowledge, your most valuable pages may never be indexed by Google or cited by LLMs.
International SEO adds another layer of difficulty. Correctly implementing hreflang within Shopify Markets is essential for global visibility. We ensure your store is structured to rank in multiple regions without creating duplicate content penalties. Expertise in the Shopify ecosystem isn't just a bonus—it’s a requirement for scaling revenue globally.
What Results Can You Expect?
Our case studies highlight real-life results from our Shopify SEO clients. In some scenarios, we have seen a 3-4x increase in organic traffic within 24 months. However, impact is highly dependent on a client's specific circumstances and the level of emphasis they place on organic search optimisation within their business.
One trend we are seeing is exceptionally high conversion rates from AI search traffic. Users are increasingly using Generative AI to ask questions and make decisions before ever reaching a website. It is not uncommon to see a conversion rate of 6-8% from AI traffic, compared to 2-4% from traditional Google search.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)
Position your brand for visibility in AI-driven search through content strategies that represent your business expertise and relevance.
Digital PR
Digital PR campaigns that build real authority, earn trusted coverage and accelerate organic growth across search and AI platforms.
Link Building
Strategic link building services designed to build authority, improve rankings and drive long-term organic growth.
Analytics
Identify and understand where your biggest opportunities lie, helping you to make confident, informed decisions that drive measurable growth.
OTHER SERVICES
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY
We worked with the Buried team on a full website migration and were really impressed with both the process and the level of care they brought to it. They started with a thoughtful analysis of our existing content, competitors, technical health, GEO signals, and domain authority to understand what was performing well and where there were opportunities to improve. Once we had a plan, they built a clear migration checklist and provided structured recommendations that made what could have been a stressful process feel very manageable. Website migrations can be risky for SEO, but Buried handled it with real expertise and attention to detail to minimize risk as much as possible. Can't recommend them enough if you're looking for a strategic and reliable SEO partner!
ELIZABETH GALLOWAY, SVP BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & OPERATIONS, PEHR
We've been really impressed by the standard of Buried's SEO and GEO work so far. Will is great at understanding a client's business and providing practical guidance without the fluff you get with some agencies in this space. Would recommend.
DAVE CRICHTON, CREATIVE DIRECTOR, IE
Buried completed a thorough SEO audit of my site, helping me validate work to date and to give me direction for moving forward. Work was delivered on time and to a standard that has enabled me to move quickly to implementing recommendations. Thanks Buried team!
JONATHAN MCELHATTON, CEO, BLACK PIANO
Incredible agency. Helped scale my business via SEO and pointed out things that I had totally missed. The team is amazing, highly recommend!
JAMES MILARAS, FOUNDER, JOKER & THE THIEF
Will has been instrumental in driving performance and growth marketing success for us over the past five years. He led our acquisition team at Buymie and continued to play a key role following our acquisition by Dunnes Stores in 2023. Will’s expertise helped us build and scale an in-house team at Dunnes Stores establishing strong foundations across performance, growth and organic search.
DEVAN HUGHES, CDO, Dunnes Stores
Buried is our organic search partner at DMajor. We bring them in to plan and deliver SEO strategies that support our web build projects and ongoing client work. One project that stands out was a website migration and SEO strategy for a men’s fashion eCommerce brand, which led to substantial post-live gains in organic traffic and revenue for the client. Their work is detailed, considered, and focused on outcomes.
Duncan MacDonald, Founder, DMajor
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SEO AGENCY FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What makes Buried different from other Shopify SEO agencies?
We own and operate multiple Shopify stores ourselves, each ranking number one in its respective niche. This isn't just about having worked on dozens of successful projects, it’s about having our own skin in the game. We understand the daily realities of managing a Shopify business, from the technical frustrations to the commercial pressure of hitting revenue targets.
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How is Shopify SEO different from WordPress, WooCommerce, or standard SEO?
A notable difference would be fixed URL structures for different page types i.e. /collection (categories) /product (products) /page (landing pages) /post (blogs) making it more difficult to signal site hierarchy to Google. Out of the box, Shopify is stronger than Wordpress & WooCommerce from a technical standpoint as it handles canonicalisation, Hreflang, robots.txt well without much need for human intervention.
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What is the contract length for your SEO service?
Because organic search requires sustained effort to build authority and trust with search engines, we typically partner with brands on structured retainers. We discuss the ideal timeline and commitment required to hit your specific commercial goals during our initial discovery call.
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How to improve seo on shopify?
Collections page optimisation is the highest yield SEO activity on a Shopify site. These are the highest value transactional pages. However wider content optimisation across pages and post is also beneficial, and this should be supported by technical SEO implementation and a backlinking activity.
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How to choose the best shopify seo agency?
Choose an agency with a proven track record of driving results in your sector. An SEO agency with the case studies and credentials that prove they can deliver success for your business.
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How much does Shopify SEO cost?
Shopify SEO delivered from an agency will cost between £2,000 and £20,000 per month depending on the size of the website and focus on organic search optimisation.
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How long does it take to see results?
Sometimes results can be seen within a few weeks, but most of the time results are visible within the first few months
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What’s included in Buried Agency’s Shopify SEO services?
Our Shopify SEO services are based around content optimisation, technical optimisation and backlink/authority building. We run our services in project or retainer format, with the most common projects being an Shopify SEO audit, or a Shopify SEO migration project (supporting a website launch). Retainers are generally ongoing SEO optimisation projects over a longer period of time.
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Do you optimise product, collection, and blog pages?
Yes. These are three of the most common page types to optimise within a Shopify SEO strategy.
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How do you track Shopify SEO and GEO performance?
Using our SEO tool Ahrefs and our GEO tool Athena. We also use data from Google Search Console and Google Analytics to create dashboards which visualise performance over time and allow us to extract insights.
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Will SEO increase my Shopify sales?
Increase in sales and revenue is the primary objective of SEO optimisation. We are trying to drive more traffic, which leads to conversions.
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Do you work with Shopify Plus and international stores?
We are experts in working with Shopify Plus and international stores. We support multiple clients in different countries with international optimisation for different markets around the world.
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Why is taxonomy important?
Taxonomy defines how products, categories, and collections are organised across your store. A clear taxonomy helps search engines understand the relationship between products and categories, which improves crawlability and internal link distribution
For Shopify stores with large catalogues, well-structured collections and sub-collections ensure that authority flows to the most commercially important pages. It also improves user experience, helping customers navigate your store and find products quickly.
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Will SEO slow down my site?
A fast website is a critical component of SEO success, so if anything Shopify SEO should speed your website up! That being said, SEO will often involve content optimisation, so if your website has thin content and more content is added naturally this will increase the size of the page which can affect speed.
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Can you guarantee rankings on Google or AI search platforms?
No agency can legitimately guarantee a specific #1 rank on Google or AI-driven search platforms. Search algorithms and AI systems change constantly and are outside any agency’s control.
What we do guarantee is a rigorous process. We focus on the variables that influence visibility: technical infrastructure, content relevance, authority signals, and structured data. By improving these fundamentals, we significantly increase the likelihood of ranking and being cited in both traditional search and LLMs
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Do you work with international Shopify stores?
Yes. We work with Shopify stores targeting multiple countries and languages. International Shopify SEO involves structuring sites so search engines clearly understand which version of a page should appear in each market.
This typically includes implementing hreflang tags, localised collections, market-specific content, and regionally relevant authority signals. The goal is to ensure the right audience finds the right version of your store, while maintaining strong global domain authority