Shopify SEO Company Guide: Pricing & 90-Day Plan

Choosing a Shopify SEO company is a high-stakes decision. The wrong partner can slow growth or create technical debt. This guide distills what a specialized Shopify SEO agency should deliver, how to evaluate vendors, what typical pricing looks like, and a pragmatic 90-day plan to forecast speed-to-value.

Overview

If you’re a Shopify or Shopify Plus store owner evaluating SEO partners, you need clarity on scope, pricing, and early results—not generic tips.

A Shopify SEO company is a specialized agency or consultant that plans, implements, and measures SEO on the Shopify platform. They work across technical, content, and analytics workstreams designed to grow qualified organic revenue.

Two platform realities shape the decision. Performance is a ranking and conversion lever, and Interaction to Next Paint (INP) replaced First Input Delay (FID) as a Core Web Vital in March 2024. This shift focuses on input responsiveness across the full page lifecycle (see Google’s guidance at web.dev/inp).

Shopify also allows robots.txt customization that many stores underuse. It can be critical for managing crawl on large catalogs (help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-store/robots.txt).

The rest of this guide covers what a complete Shopify SEO services scope looks like, how to choose a provider, clear pricing/ROI guardrails, a 90-day execution plan, and advanced considerations like headless/Hydrogen and international SEO.

What a Shopify SEO company actually does

The best Shopify SEO companies operate as an extension of your eCommerce team. They translate Shopify’s constraints and strengths into a roadmap that prioritizes revenue impact, not just rankings.

Expect platform-specific technical remediation, commercially focused content for collections and products, defensible link acquisition, and analytics you own.

At a minimum, the scope should span:

1. Technical SEO for Shopify themes, apps, crawl/indexation, canonicalization, structured data, and Core Web Vitals.
2. On-page and content production for collections, products, and supporting guides aligned to search intent.
3. Internal linking and navigation improvements that scale across templates.
4. Ethical link earning/digital PR and partnership strategies.
5. Analytics setup, KPI definitions, dashboards, and regular reporting with clear attribution notes.

A complete engagement ties these tasks to business outcomes. Think incremental organic revenue, improved conversion on high-intent pages, and lower content acquisition costs over time.

Technical SEO unique to Shopify

Shopify’s URL structure and templating create patterns you must handle deliberately. Products can exist at /products/[handle] and within collections at /collections/[collection]/products/[handle]. Correct canonicalization consolidates signals and avoids duplicate content (developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/consolidate-duplicate-urls).

Shopify auto-generates sitemaps and supports robots.txt overrides via robots.txt.liquid. Use this when you need granular crawl rules for faceted filters (help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-store/robots.txt).

Performance work should align to Core Web Vitals with an eye on INP, which measures end-to-end input latency and replaced FID in 2024 (web.dev/inp). Theme and app bloat often introduces render-blocking scripts and hydration delays.

Auditing third-party apps, deferring non-critical scripts, and image/CDN optimization can produce quick wins. Shopify’s own SEO help center offers platform guardrails worth referencing for baseline hygiene (help.shopify.com/en/manual/promoting-marketing/seo).

A focused checklist might include canonical/crawl rules, sitemap health, Liquid template efficiency, app audits, structured data coverage for Product, Breadcrumb, and Organization, and Core Web Vitals budgets enforced during theme changes.

On-page and content for collections and products

On Shopify, collections are your landing pages for commercial-intent keywords. Product pages close the deal.

Each top collection should target a clear topic cluster. Combine optimized headings, concise intro copy, robust filters, and merchantable snippets like “best sellers” to support browsing.

Product variants often create duplication and thin content. Normalize titles, centralize core specs, and keep variant content consolidated unless variants have distinct demand.

Internal linking matters because it’s the lever you fully control. Use menu architecture, collection descriptions, and modules like “related collections” to funnel equity to high-value pages.

Structured data for Product (with availability and price), Breadcrumb, and AggregateRating helps eligibility for rich results. Keep it accurate and aligned with visible content.

Supporting content hubs—guides, comparisons, and FAQs tied to collection topics—broaden ranking surfaces and attract links without bloating the catalog.

Reporting, KPIs, and communication SLAs

Clear expectations prevent surprises and accelerate decisions. Before work starts, align on access, metrics, and cadence so both sides can move fast and measure learning.

1. Grant and retain ownership of GA4 and Google Search Console; your company should be the admin on both properties.
2. Define 90-day KPIs: fix-rate for technical issues, % of priority pages improved, indexed coverage, non-brand clicks to target collections, and a baseline for INP.
3. Set a weekly status touchpoint and monthly strategy review; include a living backlog with priorities, owners, and ETAs.
4. Agree on annotation practices for major changes and promotions; maintain a shared change log.
5. Ensure deliverable ownership is explicit (docs, dashboards, and creative assets live in your workspace).

With governance in place, you’ll evaluate the work on outcomes and velocity, not artifacts.

How to choose a Shopify SEO company

Selection is about fit and proof. Does the company have platform depth, a repeatable method, and evidence in businesses like yours?

Review case studies for comparable catalog size, themes/headless setups, and markets. Ask for a walk-through of their audits and roadmaps, not just a pitch deck. Insist on transparency around analytics access, link acquisition, and content production.

Press vendors on how they prioritize work for revenue impact. A strong partner will frame hypotheses, run experiments, and adapt based on Search Console and GA4 validation—not chase vanity keywords.

Finally, scrutinize contract terms for ownership, exit clauses, and scope flexibility as your catalog and channels evolve.

Must-have evaluation criteria

1. Shopify-specific references and case studies with metrics (traffic, revenue, or conversion impact).
2. Technical depth in canonicalization, robots.txt, structured data, and theme/app performance.
3. Content operations: keyword research mapped to templates, briefs, editorial QA, and governance.
4. Analytics maturity: GA4 ecommerce and GSC integration with dashboards you own.
5. Transparent link-building and digital PR with defensible sources and zero PBNs.
6. Clear contracts: data/asset ownership, SLAs, exit clauses, and scoped deliverables by 90 days.

Red flags and deal breakers

1. Guaranteed rankings or timelines without baselines or constraints acknowledged.
2. Private blog networks (PBNs), paid link schemes, or no source transparency.
3. No admin access to GA4/GSC or reluctance to work in your analytics environment.
4. Confusion about Shopify duplicate URLs and canonicals (developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/consolidate-duplicate-urls).
5. Heavy reliance on thin AI content without editorial standards or E-E-A-T.
6. Vague audits that list issues but avoid prioritization, owners, and effort estimates.

Questions to ask in your first call

1. Which Shopify themes, apps, and headless/Hydrogen stacks have you worked with recently?
2. How do you handle product/collection canonicalization and faceted navigation?
3. What are your Core Web Vitals targets and how do you enforce them during development?
4. Who creates content, what’s your editorial process, and how is success measured?
5. What link acquisition methods do you use and can you share recent placements?
6. What access do you require (GA4, GSC, CMS), and who owns dashboards and assets?
7. What will we see in the first 30, 60, and 90 days—and how do you adjust if results lag?

Shopify SEO company pricing and ROI benchmarks

Pricing varies with store complexity, catalog size, internationalization, and whether you’re on Plus or headless. For many mid-market stores, a retainer is the most efficient path to compounding results.

Audits and projects fit teams with internal execution capacity. Always tie cost to a 90-day plan, explicit deliverables, and measurable checkpoints.

ROI compounds as technical debt is retired and content scales. A responsible vendor will forecast scenarios from your baselines, seasonality, and constraints. They will also remind you that SEO impact is uneven—some changes move the needle in weeks; others take a quarter to mature.

Typical pricing models and ranges

1. Monthly retainer: $2,500–$8,000 for small to mid catalogs; $8,000–$20,000+ for Shopify Plus, multi-market, or headless. Includes ongoing technical, content, and reporting.
2. Project-based: $5,000–$50,000 for migrations, theme rebuilds, or international rollouts with defined scopes and timelines.
3. Audits: $3,000–$20,000 depending on depth (tech, content, links, analytics) and catalog complexity, with prioritized roadmaps.
4. Hybrid: Initial audit + 3–6 month retainer focused on execution and enablement; useful for teams building in-house capacity.
5. Factors that move price: SKU count, number of templates, markets/languages, app footprint, custom code/headless, content volume, and link-building intensity.

How to estimate ROI with realistic timelines

Start with current non-brand organic sessions to target collections/products, conversion rate, average order value, and gross margin. Model conservative gains, such as 10–20% more qualified traffic over 3–6 months to those pages.

Apply your conversion rate to estimate incremental revenue. Include content and development costs in payback math.

Account for seasonality (e.g., peak Q4 for gifting) and competitor activity. Annotate major site changes to avoid false attribution.

Expect faster impact from technical indexation fixes and performance gains. Content compounds over 3–9 months.

A 90-day Shopify SEO plan with your new company

Your first 90 days should focus on removing friction, publishing high-impact content, and validating hypotheses. Work in two-week sprints with checkpoints for indexation, performance, and non-brand clicks to priority pages.

1. Day 14, 45, and 90 checkpoints: technical issue burn-down, CWV/INP status, indexed coverage, and non-brand clicks to target collections.

By treating the plan as a learning agenda, you’ll know what to double down on in Q2.

Weeks 0–2: Audit and quick wins

In the first two weeks, prioritize discovery, access, and the fixes that unlock crawling and conversion.

1. Secure GA4 and GSC admin access; baseline non-brand clicks, CWV/INP, and top money pages.
2. Audit theme/app performance; remove or defer heavy scripts and optimize images/LCP elements.
3. Validate sitemap status and robots.txt rules; unblock essential templates and block noise where appropriate.
4. Fix critical template issues: duplicate titles/H1s, broken canonicals, missing Product/Breadcrumb structured data.
5. Implement measurement guardrails: annotations, dashboards, and a prioritized backlog with owners.

Close this phase with a short report. Note what’s fixed, what’s next, and where early gains should show up in GSC.

Weeks 3–6: Technical remediation and indexation

Next, address platform-specific SEO debt and strengthen the internal linking spine.

1. Normalize product canonicalization (collection paths to product root) and standardize URL parameters.
2. Define faceted navigation rules; prevent indexation of thin/filter combinations via canonicals and robots.txt where needed.
3. Improve internal links across menus, collection descriptions, and related modules to elevate priority collections.
4. Expand structured data coverage and validate in Search Console; fix warnings/errors.
5. Hit performance budgets: reduce JS execution, optimize third-party timing, and improve INP by taming long tasks.

Expect to see improved crawl efficiency and early gains in impressions for target query groups.

Weeks 7–12: Content, internal links, and validation

With the foundation set, ship content and validate outcomes.

1. Publish or overhaul top collections with intent-aligned copy, FAQs, and curated product blocks.
2. Create supporting guides/comparisons for two priority clusters; interlink to collections/products.
3. Expand product detail completeness and differentiate variants; add UGC/reviews where applicable.
4. Secure a handful of defensible links via PR/partnerships to strengthen key pages.
5. Validate in GA4/GSC: indexation, non-brand clicks to target pages, and assisted revenue; adjust backlog based on findings.

End the quarter with a refined roadmap. Highlight what worked, what to iterate, and what to scale next.

Shopify Plus, headless, and international considerations

Advanced setups change the risk profile. Shopify Plus often brings complex catalogs, faceted navigation at scale, and B2B price lists, so crawl control and canonical governance become make-or-break.

Internationalization via Shopify Markets introduces language/country variants. Structure and hreflang accuracy determine whether customers see the right page.

Headless/Hydrogen can unlock UX speed and flexibility but raises SEO complexity around rendering, routing, metadata, and sitemaps. Plan for server-side rendering, clean routes that mirror canonical web paths, robust meta tag handling per route, and automated sitemap generation that reflects indexable pages only—especially as you add markets and channels.

Headless/Hydrogen SEO gotchas

Headless SEO fails most often at the intersection of rendering, performance, and metadata. Favor SSR or static/ISR where possible to ensure full HTML renders for crawlers; avoid client-only rendering for critical content.

Route design should align with Shopify canonical paths to prevent duplicate URL patterns and orphaning. Invest in a metadata layer that sets titles, descriptions, canonicals, and structured data per route.

Generate sitemaps from the routing layer to match indexable inventory. Enforce performance budgets focused on INP and long tasks to keep interactivity crisp on real devices (web.dev/inp).

International SEO and hreflang in Shopify

Shopify Markets supports multi-country/language selling with domains or subfolders; the choice impacts crawl, authority flow, and ops (help.shopify.com/en/manual/markets). Hreflang tells Google which localized version to serve and avoids self-competition when markets share languages (developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/crawling/localized-versions).

1. Decide structure early: ccTLDs for strong local signals, subdomains for separation, or subfolders for centralized authority—subfolders are the most common starting point.
2. Keep one canonical per language/country URL and implement reciprocal hreflang across all alternates, including x-default for global selectors.
3. Localize beyond language: currency, shipping, and policies; align internal links to keep users within their market site.

With correct governance and QA, Markets plus hreflang scales cleanly without fragmenting equity.

Build vs buy: in-house team, freelancer, or Shopify SEO company?

Resourcing depends on size, speed, and specialization. In-house works when you have the budget to hire cross-functional talent (technical, content, analytics) and enough roadmap to keep them fully utilized.

Freelancers are great for specific tasks—content production, audits—when you can project manage. A Shopify SEO company brings breadth, platform patterns, and speed of execution, especially through migrations, rebuilds, or international expansion.

Choose based on your constraints:

1. Pick in-house if SEO is a permanent growth pillar, you can hire 1–3 roles, and you want embedded ownership.
2. Pick a freelancer if you have a defined gap (e.g., content scale-up) and strong internal PM/QA.
3. Pick a Shopify SEO agency for complex catalogs, Plus/headless builds, multi-market rollouts, or when speed-to-value matters more than headcount.

RFP template and scope checklist

A tight RFP gets you comparable proposals and fewer surprises. Share enough detail to let vendors price accurately and propose meaningful strategies.

1. Business context: goals, revenue mix, seasonality, and current growth constraints.
2. Tech stack: theme, key apps, custom code/headless, CDNs, and dev resources.
3. Scope: technical, content, links/PR, analytics; what’s in/out, including migration/replatforming if relevant.
4. Priorities and KPIs for 90 days: target collections/products, CWV/INP targets, indexation goals, and non-brand click growth.
5. Internationalization: current Markets setup, languages/countries, and hreflang status.
6. Access and ownership: GA4/GSC admin, code/content repos, dashboard ownership.
7. Deliverables: audits, roadmaps, briefs, content volume, dev tickets, and reporting cadence.
8. Link acquisition standards: allowable tactics, source transparency, and compliance.
9. Timelines and collaboration: sprint cadence, meeting SLAs, and stakeholder roles.
10. Budget and pricing model: preferred structure and any constraints or milestones.
11. Legal: data/asset ownership, confidentiality, exit/termination clauses, and non-compete where applicable.

Ask vendors to include a sample audit excerpt and a 30/60/90 plan to see how they think and prioritize.

Case-study benchmarks by vertical

Benchmarks are not guarantees, but they help calibrate expectations. In apparel, where competition is high but intent clustering is clear, improved collection architecture and internal linking can drive 10–20% non-brand click growth to top categories over a quarter. Revenue impact is gated by conversion rate and merchandising.

Beauty typically benefits from content hubs (how-tos, ingredient guides) that attract links. A steady cadence of 4–6 high-quality pieces per month tied to collections often compounds visibility within 3–6 months.

Home and furniture, with longer consideration cycles, respond well to comparison and sizing content plus performance gains. INP/LCP improvements often lift both rankings and on-page conversion simultaneously.

These ranges depend on your starting point, catalog depth, and execution velocity. Use them to set directional goals and to prioritize the first 90 days around the pages and clusters most likely to move.

FAQs

What should be included in a Shopify SEO RFP to get comparable proposals? Include business context, technical stack, scope boundaries, a 90-day KPI set, Markets/headless details, access/ownership expectations, deliverables, link standards, collaboration cadence, budget, and legal terms. Ask for a sample audit excerpt and a 30/60/90 plan to compare methodology and prioritization.

How do Shopify Markets and hreflang work together for international SEO? Markets defines your structure (domains/subfolders) while hreflang signals language/country variants to Google so the right page ranks locally. Both must be consistent and reciprocal to avoid duplicate targeting and cannibalization.

When does a headless/Hydrogen build make SEO harder, and how do you mitigate it? Client-rendered content, fragile routing, and ad hoc metadata often break discoverability. Mitigate with SSR/ISR, canonical-aligned routes, centralized metadata/structured data, automated sitemaps, and strict performance budgets focused on INP.

Which KPIs should I expect in the first 90 days with a Shopify SEO company? Track technical issue burn-down, CWV/INP trend, indexed coverage of priority URLs, non-brand clicks to target collections/products, and early assisted revenue. Treat rankings as directional, not absolute.

What analytics access and data ownership should be in the contract? Your company should be GA4 and GSC admin, own all dashboards and raw exports, and retain access post-contract. The vendor should work in your environment and annotate major changes.

How do agency retainers vs project-based Shopify SEO engagements impact ROI and speed to value? Retainers favor compounding gains and rapid iteration across workstreams. Projects deliver depth on defined scopes (e.g., migration) but rely on your team for follow-through. Hybrids can bridge both.

How should canonicalization be handled for faceted navigation and product variants on Shopify? Canonicalize collection product URLs to the product root. Prevent indexing of thin parameterized/filter pages. Ensure each variant doesn’t generate indexable duplicates unless demand justifies unique pages.

What are realistic pricing ranges for Shopify SEO by store size and catalog complexity? Small catalogs often fit a $2,500–$6,000/mo retainer or a $3,000–$8,000 audit. Mid-market/Plus with multi-markets or heavy apps can run $8,000–$20,000+/mo or $10,000–$30,000 for projects. Headless and migrations sit higher due to engineering lift.

How do you evaluate link-building approaches for compliance and risk on Shopify stores? Favor digital PR, partnerships, resource content, and selective editorial outreach. Demand source transparency, avoid PBNs and paid link schemes, and track links in a shared sheet with acquisition context.

What red flags indicate a Shopify SEO company could harm long-term visibility? Guaranteed rankings, PBN use, resistance to analytics access, confusion about canonical/duplicate handling, and one-size-fits-all content without editorial QA.

When should I build an in-house SEO function instead of hiring a Shopify SEO company? If SEO is a core growth engine, you can fund multiple roles, and your roadmap needs embedded, cross-functional coordination daily, in-house ownership pays off.

What migration safeguards are needed when replatforming or restructuring collections/products? Comprehensive URL mapping, tested 301 redirects, canonical rules, pre/post-migration crawls, structured data parity, performance budgets, and GSC/analytics annotations with close monitoring for 4–8 weeks.

References and further reading

1. Core Web Vitals: Interaction to Next Paint (INP) overview and guidance: https://web.dev/inp/
2. Shopify SEO help center (baseline platform guidance): https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/promoting-marketing/seo
3. Shopify robots.txt customization: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-store/robots.txt
4. Google: Consolidate duplicate URLs and canonicalization: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/consolidate-duplicate-urls
5. Google: Hreflang guidelines for multilingual/multi-regional sites: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/crawling/localized-versions
6. Shopify Markets documentation: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/markets
7. Google: Creating helpful, people-first content: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content