Shopify SEO for Australian stores: a practical checklist

Shopify generates a sitemap at /sitemap.xml, lets you edit titles and meta descriptions on every page, and outputs canonical tags in Theme Store themes. That covers the basics. It does not decide how your catalogue is organised, what your collection pages say, or how quickly your theme loads on a phone in regional Queensland. Those are the parts you control, and they are where most of the gains come from.

This checklist goes in the order we work through a store. If you are moving platforms, read it alongside our migration checklist, because redirects decide whether your existing rankings survive. If you want someone to run the whole list, that is what our Shopify SEO service does.

Collection pages are your category pages, and they are usually the best chance to rank for the terms people actually search, such as linen shirts or reef-safe sunscreen. Product pages rank for specific products. Build the structure around what shoppers type, not around how your supplier lists things.

• Give each collection a plain name that matches a search phrase. Use the term people say, such as sunscreen, not an internal range name.
• Write 80 to 200 words of useful intro copy above or below the product grid. Cover who it is for, how to choose, and what the range includes. Avoid padding.
• Keep the structure shallow. A home page that links to main collections, and main collections that link to sub-collections, is enough for most catalogues.
• Link to related collections from inside a collection page, such as a sunscreen collection linking to after-sun care.
• Use smart collections with rules so new products land in the right place without manual work.
• Do not create a collection for every tag. Thin, near-empty collections waste crawl time and dilute your good pages.
• Add a breadcrumb or clear back link on product pages so the path from product to collection is obvious to people and to Google.

Every Shopify product can be reached by more than one URL. The clean one is /products/blue-shirt. The same product also loads at /collections/shirts/products/blue-shirt, and at one URL for each collection it sits in. These are duplicates in Google's eyes.

Shopify's default fix is a canonical tag. Theme Store themes output a rel="canonical" tag that points the collection path back to the /products/ version, according to a Shopify staff reply on the Shopify Community. So you rarely have a duplicate content penalty, but you can still waste crawl effort and split link signals if your own links point at the long URLs.

1. Step 1

   Check the canonical on a live product

   Open a product from inside a collection, view the page source, and search for rel="canonical". It should show the short /products/ URL.

2. Step 2

   Fix your theme links

   Many themes link product cards to the long collection URL. Ask your developer to change the product link to the plain product URL, so every internal link points at the page you want ranked.

3. Step 3

   Check Search Console

   In the Pages report, look for URLs marked as duplicate or alternate page with proper canonical tag. A few is normal. Thousands means internal links are pointing at the wrong URLs.

4. Step 4

   Control filter and parameter pages

   Filtered collection URLs with parameters should not be indexed as separate pages. Test yours, and edit robots.txt.liquid if you need to block them.

Write a unique title and meta description for every collection, product and key page. Shopify gives you a search engine listing editor on each one. Put the main phrase early in the title, keep it readable, and write the description as a reason to click. Do not leave the default, which is often just the product name.

• Product titles: lead with what it is, then the brand or variant. Avoid stuffing keywords.
• Product descriptions: write your own. Copying a supplier description puts you on a page with every other reseller.
• Image alt text: describe what is in the image in a short sentence. It helps screen reader users and gives Google context. Do not repeat the same keyword on every image.
• File names: rename images from IMG_4421 to something readable before upload.
• Headings: one H1 per page, which most themes handle for you, then H2s for real sections.

Structured data is markup that tells Google what a page is: a product, its price, its availability. Google's documentation says merchant listing features rely on specific data such as price and availability, and that it may check this data before showing it in results. Most Shopify themes include basic Product markup. Your job is to check it is complete and correct.

1. Step 1

   Test a product page

   Run a product URL through Google's Rich Results Test and look for Product and Offer with a price in AUD and an availability value.

2. Step 2

   Watch the Merchant listings report

   Once Google has crawled your store, the Merchant listings report in Search Console flags missing or invalid fields on your products.

3. Step 3

   Keep price and stock in sync

   If the markup says in stock and the page says sold out, Google will notice. Use a theme that reads availability from the live variant.

4. Step 4

   Add shipping and returns data

   Google's Merchant Center also asks for shipping and returns policies. Matching these on your site and in Merchant Center avoids mismatch warnings.

Do not add review markup unless the reviews are real and shown on the page. Ratings you cannot back up mislead shoppers, and we never add them.

Slow pages cost you shoppers, and Google publishes Core Web Vitals targets for page experience. Shopify says the biggest factors for stores are the theme and the apps installed. The targets are an LCP within 2.5 seconds, INP under 200 milliseconds and CLS under 0.1, measured at the 75th percentile of real visits. We cover the full fix list in our speed and Core Web Vitals guide.

If you have a shopfront, showroom or pickup point, a Google Business Profile helps you appear in map results and local searches. Keep the name, address and hours identical to your website. Add a location page for each physical store with its own address, hours, parking notes and photos, and link to it from the footer.

• Show prices in AUD and say GST is included. See our GST setup guide.
• Publish clear delivery times and costs for Australian postcodes, and name the carriers you use. Our shipping guide covers the options.
• If you sell to New Zealand, set up a market with NZD prices. See Shopify Markets for New Zealand.
• Use Australian spelling in copy: colour, centre, catalogue, jewellery.
• Do not create dozens of near-identical suburb pages. If you serve a region without a shopfront, one honest service area page beats fifty copies.

Google lets merchants list products for free on the Shopping tab and other Google surfaces, and Australia is on its list of supported countries. Google says free listings can show on the Shopping tab, YouTube, Search, Images and Lens. For a Shopify store the usual route is the Google and YouTube app, which syncs your products to a Merchant Center account.

1. Step 1

   Install the Google and YouTube app

   Connect your Google account, create or link a Merchant Center account, and let it sync your catalogue.

2. Step 2

   Set up shipping

   Google requires shipping settings or shipping costs for Australian listings. Add your real rates and handling times.

3. Step 3

   Add your return policy

   Add returns details in Merchant Center under Shipping and returns. Google verifies it against your site, so they must match. Our returns policy guide shows how to write one.

4. Step 4

   Opt in to free listings

   In Merchant Center, check that Free listings appears under Destinations for your feed, and tick it if it is not on.

5. Step 5

   Fix disapprovals

   Work through the Diagnostics page. The common issues are missing GTINs, price mismatches and policy gaps.

Submit your sitemap in Search Console as well. Verify your custom domain property, not the myshopify.com address, then add sitemap.xml under Sitemaps.

• Search Console: check Pages for new errors, Merchant listings for product issues, and Performance for queries that are rising.
• Refresh your three weakest collection pages with better copy and internal links.
• Add two new pieces of buying advice, such as a size guide or comparison, and link them to the relevant collections.
• Re-test page speed after any new app or theme change.
• Check for broken links and 404s after discontinuing products, and redirect them to the nearest alternative.

Our Growth plan includes monthly Shopify SEO work covering content, collections and technical fixes, and our Launch package sets up on-page SEO for every page and connects Search Console from day one.