Shopify SEO Consultant
Shopify SEO That
Replaces Paid Spend
The point of organic is not traffic. It is that every order arriving free lowers what you can afford to pay for the next paid one. On one store I cut paid spend by a third and built organic to cover the gap.
The Platform
How Is Shopify SEO
Different From Generic SEO?
Shopify solves a lot for you and creates a specific set of problems in return. These are the six I find in almost every store — none of them covered by Google’s SEO starter guide, because they are platform problems rather than SEO ones.
Why does Shopify create duplicate product URLs?
Shopify serves the same product at /products/x and /collections/y/products/x. Canonicals usually handle it, but themes and apps break them constantly, and then you are competing with yourself. Google’s own guidance on specifying a canonical is the standard the fix is checked against.
Why are collection pages so thin?
Collections are the pages with real search demand — and by default they are a title and a grid. The stores winning those terms have genuine content on them.
A blog nobody links to
Shopify’s blog sits at /blogs/news/ and is almost always orphaned from the money pages. Posts that never link to a collection do not sell anything.
Do apps really slow the store down?
Every app injects script. Core Web Vitals on a stock theme with fourteen apps is where a lot of rankings go to die, and nobody audits it because everything still looks fine.
Faceted navigation eating the crawl budget
Filter and sort parameters generate thousands of near-identical URLs. Google crawls them instead of your products.
Thin product descriptions
Manufacturer copy pasted across every store selling the same item. There is no version of SEO that rescues a page identical to two hundred others.
Proof
What Does This Work
Actually Move?
Petticoat Lane, 24 months, pulled from Search Console rather than estimated.
−33%
Paid spend cut, with organic built to replace the volume
3.9x
Blended return across the account over the same period
2×
Roughly double the organic impressions
Petticoat Lane also migrated to Shopify during the same period, which is the honest reason the numbers moved as far as they did — a migration and an SEO programme at once. Worth saying, because most case studies would not.
The Work
What Actually
Gets Done?
Technical
- Canonicals, duplicate product paths and parameter handling
- Crawl budget: faceted navigation, pagination, orphaned pages
- Core Web Vitals, app audit and theme weight
- Structured data for products, reviews and breadcrumbs
Content and structure
- Keyword mapping across collections, products and blog
- Collection pages written to actually rank, not just exist
- Internal linking from content into the money pages
- Product copy that is not the manufacturer’s
A word on timelines. SEO on an established store shows movement in three to six months, and meaningfully in nine to twelve. Anyone promising faster is either selling you branded traffic you already had, or has not done it. If you need volume next month, that is what paid is for — and I run that too.
Platform
Shopify or WordPress:
Which Ranks Better?
Asked on almost every migration call. The platform matters less than people think, and the ways it matters are specific.
| Shopify | WordPress / WooCommerce | |
|---|---|---|
| Control over URLs | Fixed structure — /products/, /collections/ cannot be removed | Full control |
| Technical maintenance | Hosted, patched, rarely breaks | Yours to keep updated and secure |
| Speed out of the box | Generally fast without work | Depends entirely on hosting, theme and plugin load |
| Content and blogging | Serviceable but basic | Far stronger — it began as a publishing platform |
| Structured data | Theme-dependent, often incomplete | Better plugin support |
| Risk of self-inflicted damage | Low — fewer ways to break it | Higher — more control means more rope |
For a store that is actually selling, the gap between platforms is smaller than the gap between a store that writes real collection page copy and one that does not. Neither platform is why a store fails to rank.
Audits
What Does an
SEO Audit Cover?
Three audits, priced and published here so you can rule me in or out without booking a call to find out what something costs.
Every audit on this page is credited in full against your first month if you start a retainer within 30 days of the report being delivered. The audit is how we both find out whether there is enough here to work on together. If there is, the audit costs you nothing. If there is not, you keep the report and owe nothing further.
SURFACE — SEO Site Audit
$450 one time
For a site that has never had a proper audit. No account access needed, so it can be run before you share anything.
- Technical crawl: indexation, site structure and crawl waste
- On-page: titles, headings and internal linking
- Core Web Vitals, taken from Google field data where it exists
- Backlink profile and referring domains
- Findings written in the order they are worth fixing
- Up to 100 pages
- 3 to 5 business days
CORE — SEO Account Audit
$700 one time
Everything in SURFACE, read against your own numbers instead of inferred from the outside.
- Everything in SURFACE
- Search Console: what you rank for, and where clicks are lost
- Analytics: what visitors do once they arrive
- Findings tied to your data rather than estimated
- Requires read access to Search Console and Analytics
- Up to 100 pages
- 5 to 7 business days
Includes a walkthrough call
SPECTRUM — Full Marketing Audit
$1,500 one time
Ends with a call where we go through every finding together, so the report is not something you read alone and interpret on your own.
- A walkthrough call covering every finding
- Everything in CORE
- Google Ads audit: structure, spend and conversion tracking
- Meta Ads audit: structure, audiences, creative and measurement
- Three competitor teardowns
- Up to 250 pages
- 7 to 10 business days
Sites above these page counts are quoted separately. More on what an SEO audit covers →
Pricing
What Does It Cost
to Work Together?
Published, so you can rule me in or out without booking a call.
Channel Management
Starting at $1,500 /month
You own the plan. I run the channels.
- Campaign build and management
- Conversion tracking and reporting
- Monthly performance call
- SEO is not included at this tier
- Additional channels +$500 each
- Minimum ad spend $5,000/month
- 6 month commitment
Most Popular
Growth Partner
Starting at $4,000 /month
I own paid strategy end to end.
- Everything in Channel Management
- Every channel included, priced as one
- SEO included: technical, on-page and content
- Channel mix and budget allocation
- Creative direction and briefs
- Quarterly CRO roadmap
- 25 hours a month included
- Minimum ad spend $10,000/month
- 3 months, then month to month
Fractional CMO
Starting at $7,000 /month
I own the whole marketing function.
- Everything in Growth Partner
- Email, SEO and site direction
- Contractor sourcing and management
- Quarterly planning with you
- 40 hours a month included
- Minimum ad spend $20,000/month
- 6 month commitment
FAQ
Questions About
Shopify SEO
If yours is not here, ask it on the call.
What does a Shopify SEO expert actually do?
Three things, in this order. Fix what is stopping the catalogue being indexed properly, which on Shopify is usually duplicate product URLs and faceted navigation. Make the collection pages good enough to rank, because that is where the buying intent sits rather than on the blog. Then earn the links and mentions that decide whether any of it outranks the stores already there. An expert who starts at step three is selling you the easy part.
How much does a Shopify SEO consultant cost?
What does an SEO audit cost?
$450 for SURFACE, which needs no account access and can be run before you share anything. $700 for CORE, which reads Search Console and Analytics alongside it. $1,500 for SPECTRUM, which adds Google Ads, Meta Ads, three competitor teardowns and a call where we go through every finding together. Every one of them is credited in full against your first month if you start a retainer within 30 days of the report being delivered.
How long does Shopify SEO take to work?
Is Shopify actually good for SEO?
Do I need SEO if my paid ads are working?
Will you write the content?
Do you do SEO for platforms other than Shopify?
Is Shopify good for SEO?
How do you do SEO for a Shopify website?
Is WordPress or Shopify better for SEO?
Let’s Talk
Book a free 30 minute call. I will tell you what I would do with your accounts, whether or not you hire me.
Book a Discovery Call
30-minute strategy session
Prefer to Reach Out Directly?
Happy to talk it through over email or a quick call. I usually reply within a few hours on weekdays.
- greg@digitalkarbon.com
- Massachusetts • Nationwide
Who You Talk To
Me, Every Time
What to Expect
- 30 minutes with me, not a salesperson
- What I would change in your account first
- No pitch deck, no obligation