What SEO Basics Should I Do Myself Before Hiring an Agency?

Before hiring an SEO agency, you do not need to become an SEO expert. You do need a clear picture of your store: what is working, where growth has stalled, and what has already been changed. That preparation helps you distinguish useful advice from a generic sales pitch—and gives any future partner a better starting point.

For a Shopify store, some technical basics are handled for you. Others still depend on your theme, apps, catalog structure, and day-to-day decisions. The goal is not to fix everything yourself. It is to understand the baseline, address straightforward issues, and document the work so that an agency can explain what it would do next.

Start with baseline data, not guesses

Before changing titles, installing apps, or commissioning an audit, save a snapshot of how the store is performing. SEO changes can take time to show results, and without a baseline it is difficult to tell whether a recommendation helped. Focus on outcomes that matter to the business, not just the biggest number on a dashboard.

Organic revenue and orders: Record revenue and conversions attributed to organic search, using your analytics platform’s attribution definitions consistently.
Organic sessions: Note the trend over at least several months and account for seasonality, promotions, and major site changes.
Search performance: Export clicks, impressions, click-through rate, and average position from Google Search Console. Treat impressions and average position as diagnostic signals, not business results.
Landing pages and queries: Identify the pages and search terms bringing in qualified traffic, as well as important products or collections that receive little visibility.
Site changes: List theme launches, app installations or removals, URL changes, migrations, and major catalog updates with approximate dates.

Compare periods fairly. A holiday quarter should not be compared with a quiet summer month without context. If revenue attribution is incomplete or inconsistent, note that before drawing conclusions from the numbers.

Understand what Shopify does—and does not—do for SEO

Shopify provides a solid technical starting point, but it does not automatically make every store search-ready. Shopify includes SSL by default, so the storefront can use HTTPS without you needing to source a separate certificate. Shopify also creates an auto-generated sitemap, which helps search engines discover eligible URLs.

That is useful infrastructure, not a guarantee that every important page is indexed or will rank. The sitemap does not decide which pages deserve attention, fix duplicate content, create useful product descriptions, or build a sensible internal-linking structure. You still need to check whether search engines can access the right pages and whether the pages offer a clear reason to appear in results.

Shopify generally provides You still need to review SSL by default Redirects and references that may still point to non-secure or outdated URLs An auto-generated sitemap Whether it is submitted in Search Console and whether important URLs are discoverable Editable page titles and descriptions Whether those fields are unique, accurate, and useful to shoppers Standard collection and product templates Whether templates produce useful content, clean navigation, and consistent links at your catalog’s scale

Check the sitemap and index coverage

Set up or confirm access to Google Search Console for your correct domain property. Then submit your Shopify sitemap, typically available at /sitemap.xml. This is the practical meaning of checking your search console sitemap: make sure Google can fetch it, then use Search Console reports to investigate important URLs that are not indexed.

Do not expect every URL to be indexed. Filter options, duplicate product URLs, out-of-stock items, and low-value pages may not need to appear in search. Investigate patterns rather than treating each excluded URL as an emergency. If a key collection or product page is missing, inspect its status, internal links, canonical URL, and content before requesting indexing.

Also test a few important URLs with Search Console’s URL Inspection tool. Confirm that the page can be crawled and that Google’s selected canonical is sensible. If you recently changed a theme or migrated domains, check for unintended noindex directives, broken redirects, and links to old URLs.

Improve title tags and meta descriptions on priority pages

Good title tags shopify stores use are specific, readable, and aligned with the page’s actual purpose. A title is not a place to cram every keyword variant. Start with your most valuable collections and products, then check that each title identifies the item or category clearly and is distinct from nearby pages.

Review meta descriptions shopify pages use in the same way. Search engines may rewrite descriptions, so there is no guarantee that your text will appear exactly as written. Still, a concise, accurate description can help set expectations and encourage a relevant click. Avoid copying one description across an entire collection or product catalog.

Export or list your highest-revenue organic landing pages and priority collections.
Check the visible title tag and meta description for each page in Shopify’s search listing editor.
Make the wording distinct and truthful; include the main product or category naturally.
Record what you changed and when, so you can compare performance later.

Do not rewrite hundreds of fields at once without a plan. If a page already earns qualified clicks and revenue, preserve what is working unless you have evidence for a change.

Look for a growth plateau before buying more SEO work

A plateau is not one universal problem. It may mean organic sessions have stopped growing, or that traffic is steady while revenue declines. Those situations call for different investigations. Compare landing-page performance, conversion rate, product availability, average order value, and search demand rather than treating “more traffic” as the only goal.

Questions to answer before an agency call

Did organic revenue flatten too, or only impressions and clicks?
Are a few pages responsible for most of the change?
Did rankings or clicks shift after a theme update, app change, migration, or Google update?
Are products that used to sell organically still in stock and competitively priced?
Have collection pages become harder to navigate as the catalog grew?
Is the store attracting relevant shoppers who do not convert, or is the right audience not finding it?

Use Search Console to find queries and pages that gained or lost clicks, then compare those findings with analytics and sales data. A page with more impressions but no qualified visits or sales is not automatically a success. Likewise, an average-position change by itself does not explain why revenue moved.

Audit app and theme debt

Shopify stores often accumulate technical debt gradually. An app is added for a campaign, another app replaces it later, and snippets or scripts remain after removal. A theme redesign can introduce a new set of templates, metafields, redirects, or performance trade-offs. These issues are not inevitable, but they are common enough to check before assuming that a store needs a broad SEO overhaul.

Make an inventory of installed apps and identify what each one does, who owns it, and whether it is still used. Pay particular attention to apps that add structured data, reviews, filters, pop-ups, translation, or page-building functionality. Two tools doing the same job can create conflicts or duplicate output.

Then review the theme history and test key page types on mobile: homepage, collection, product, and any important editorial pages. Check for broken links, confusing navigation, missing content, slow or unstable page behavior, and duplicate headings. Do not remove code or apps blindly; document the concern and ask the app or theme developer what depends on it.

Plan for SKU scale and consistent internal linking

A small catalog can be managed page by page. A large catalog needs repeatable rules. As SKUs grow, inconsistent product titles, thin descriptions, duplicate variants, and orphaned pages become harder to spot manually. Build simple standards for product naming, descriptions, image alt text, variant handling, and collection assignment before trying to edit everything at once.

Internal links are part of that structure. Shoppers and search engines should be able to move from broad categories to relevant subcategories and products without relying entirely on search or filters. Check whether high-value products are linked from appropriate collections, whether related categories are easy to reach, and whether important guides link to products in a helpful, natural way.

Be cautious with automated links and keyword-heavy anchor text. Consistency means a clear, maintainable structure—not forcing the same exact phrase into every link. For Shopify Plus stores or other large catalogs, agree on rules for product and collection relationships that work across teams and integrations. Then test those rules on a sample before rolling them out at scale.

Decide what to handle yourself and what to delegate

You can usually prepare the data, check key pages, clean up obvious content gaps, and document app or theme history yourself. More complex issues—such as a migration with thousands of URLs, persistent indexation problems, or custom theme changes—may call for experienced technical help. Even then, your preparation helps you evaluate the scope.

If you speak with providers such as OneLittleWeb or another agency, ask for recommendations tied to your baseline and store priorities. “Ongoing optimization” https://bizzmarkblog.com/how-do-i-estimate-the-value-of-traffic-im-missing/ is not a deliverable by itself. Ask what will be changed, which pages or systems are in scope, how work will be prioritized, what depends on your team, and how success will be measured.

Questions worth asking an agency

What baseline data do you need, and which business outcomes will you report?
What specific deliverables are included in the first 90 days?
Who will do the work, and will the same people attend calls and implement changes?
How will you explain link sources and assess their relevance and risk?
How do you coordinate with our Shopify developer, app vendors, and merchandising team?
What would make you recommend that we do not proceed with a proposed change?

Be wary of guaranteed rankings or reports that celebrate impressions without connecting them to qualified traffic, orders, or revenue. Ask to see evidence behind recommendations, not just screenshots. A good partner should be able to explain uncertainty, trade-offs, and what they need from your team.

A practical pre-agency checklist

Save a baseline of organic revenue, orders, sessions, and Search Console performance.
Confirm Search Console access and submit the Shopify sitemap.
Inspect a sample of priority product, collection, and content pages.
Review title tags and meta descriptions on the pages that matter most.
Document recent theme, app, catalog, and URL changes.
Check internal links and catalog rules for gaps that grow with SKU scale.
Write down the business problem you want SEO work to solve.

You do not need to complete every item before talking to an agency. The useful starting https://technivorz.com/why-do-shopify-plus-seo-retainers-start-around-7500-a-month/ point is a reliable baseline and a short list of questions. Shopify’s defaults cover some foundations, but durable SEO still depends on the quality of your pages, the health of your theme and apps, and the consistency of your catalog. Do the checks you can, document what you find, and expect any agency worth hiring to explain the next steps in terms your team can verify.