How to Run a Shopify SEO Audit (Step by Step)

Shopify SEO6 min readAugust 18, 2026

A Shopify SEO audit is a structured check of whether your store is findable, technically clean, and worth ranking. You can run a complete one with two free tools: Google Search Console and a website crawler. Work through six areas in order: indexation, technical health, metadata, page content, internal linking, and structured data. Score each area, total it out of 100, then fix the lowest-scoring area first.

What a Shopify SEO audit actually measures

An audit is not a vanity score from a plugin. It answers three practical questions: can search engines find and index your pages, is the store technically clean enough to crawl, and does each page deserve to rank for a real search. A good audit turns those questions into a repeatable process you can run every month and hand to anyone. The rest of this guide gives you that process, a scoring rubric so results are comparable over time, and a checklist you can print.

The only two tools you need

You do not need paid software to audit a Shopify store. Two free tools cover the whole job.

Google Search Console (free from Google): shows which pages Google has indexed, which queries bring impressions and clicks, and where click-through rate is weak. Google's Search Central documentation describes the Page indexing and Performance reports that power most of this audit.
A website crawler such as Screaming Frog's SEO Spider free tier, or a comparable free crawler: it visits every URL it can reach and reports broken links, redirect chains, duplicate titles, missing metadata, and thin pages. The free tier caps how many URLs it crawls, which is fine for most small and mid-size Shopify catalogs.

The scoring rubric

Score each area out of its maximum. Award full points when you find no issues, half when you find a few, and zero when the problem is widespread. Totalling to 100 lets you compare this month to last and prove that a fix moved the number.

Audit area	What to check	Free tool	Max points
Indexation and discovery	Indexed pages vs real page count, orphan pages, sitemap submitted	Search Console	20
Technical health	Broken links, redirect chains, canonical conflicts, duplicate titles	Crawler	20
Metadata	Missing, duplicate, or overlong titles and descriptions, low-CTR pages	Crawler + Search Console	20
Page content	Thin or duplicate product and collection copy, missing H1s	Crawler	20
Internal linking and structure	Click depth, orphan products, collections linked in nav	Crawler	10
Structured data	Valid Product and Article schema present	Rich Results Test	10

How to read your total

80 to 100: healthy, keep maintaining monthly. 60 to 79: fixable gaps, usually in metadata and content, so start there. Below 60: foundational problems, fix indexation and technical health before anything else, because content cannot rank on pages Google cannot crawl or index.

How to run each check

1. Indexation and discovery

Open Search Console and go to the Page indexing report. Compare the number of indexed pages against how many products, collections, and blog posts you actually publish. A gap in either direction is a signal. Illustrative example: a store with 400 products but only 120 indexed pages usually has crawl or canonical problems hiding most of the catalog from Google. In the other direction, if indexed pages far exceed real pages, you may be indexing filtered or tagged collection URLs that duplicate each other. Confirm your sitemap is submitted and that Search Console reports no errors on it.

2. Technical health

Run your crawler from the homepage and let it map the whole store. Sort the results for any non-200 status: broken internal links, redirect chains where one URL bounces through several hops before landing, and pages that canonical to a different URL than you expect. Shopify generates duplicate paths for products that live in multiple collections, so canonical tags matter here. Fix broken links first because they waste crawl budget and frustrate shoppers. For the full sweep of crawl, canonical, and speed issues, see how to run a deeper technical SEO pass.

3. Metadata

Two inputs feed this check. From the crawler, list every page with a missing, duplicate, or overly long title tag or meta description. From Search Console's Performance report, sort for pages with high impressions but low click-through rate: those titles are being shown but not clicked, so they are your highest-value rewrites. Rewrite them to say what the page is and why to click, and make sure each one targets a term people actually search. If you have not mapped that demand yet, start by learning how to match each page to real search demand.

4. Page content

Use the crawler's word-count and duplicate-content views. Flag product pages running on the manufacturer's boilerplate description, collection pages with no intro copy above the grid, and any page missing an H1. Thin and duplicated copy is the most common reason ecommerce pages fail to rank. Illustrative example: fifty products that all share the same two-sentence supplier blurb give Google fifty near-identical pages and little reason to rank any one of them.

5. Internal linking and structure

In the crawler, check click depth: how many clicks from the homepage it takes to reach each product. Pages buried four or five clicks deep are hard for both crawlers and shoppers to find. Look for orphan pages with no internal links pointing to them, and confirm your main collections are linked from navigation. Strong internal linking spreads authority to the pages you most want to rank.

6. Structured data

Paste a product URL and a blog URL into Google's Rich Results Test. It reports which structured data types it detects and whether they are valid. Shopify themes usually output Product schema, but it is often incomplete or missing on blog articles. Valid Product and Article markup helps search engines and answer engines understand what each page is.

Common mistakes that skew an audit

Auditing once and never again. A store changes every time you add products or edit a theme, so an audit is a monthly habit, not a one-time task.
Fixing cosmetic issues first. A clumsy meta description matters far less than 200 products Google cannot index. Score first, then fix the lowest scores.
Trusting a plugin's overall SEO score without checking what it measured. Many scores reward filling every field, not filling it well.
Ignoring Search Console data in favor of guesses. Real impression and click data tells you which pages are close to winning.
Treating every crawler warning as urgent. A crawler flags issues by rule, not by impact, so weigh them against revenue and traffic before acting.

Your printable audit checklist

Print this and tick each item. Award the points from the rubric as you go, total your score, then fix the lowest-scoring area first.

Search Console: indexed page count is close to your real product, collection, and blog count
Sitemap is submitted and reporting no errors
Crawl returns no broken internal links or long redirect chains
Canonical tags point where you expect, especially on products in multiple collections
No duplicate or missing title tags across the store
High-impression, low-CTR pages have rewritten titles and descriptions
No product or collection pages running on thin or boilerplate copy
Every important page has one clear H1
Key products are within three clicks of the homepage with no orphans
Product and Article schema validate in the Rich Results Test
Every area scored, total recorded, and the lowest score picked as your first fix

Where Pokra fits

An audit like this takes a few focused hours the first time, and it needs repeating as your catalog grows. If you would rather not run it by hand every month, this is the exact work Pokra automates: it crawls the store, flags technical issues, checks indexation against Google, and rescores metadata from real Search Console performance. You can see what a Pokra audit scores automatically and hold it against the rubric above. The method matters more than any tool though. Run the checklist yourself, pair it with the broader Shopify SEO fundamentals, and you will surface the same wins by hand.