Search engines rank your store on what it sells and what it says. The theme takes care of the technical side; the words and pictures are yours. This page lists what Masthead does automatically, and the few things worth doing yourself.
What the theme handles
- Page titles and canonical links. Every page gets its own title, with the page number on later pages of a collection, and a canonical link so filtered and sorted views of a collection count as one page.
- Structured data. Products and articles carry Shopify's own product and article data, so search engines can show prices, availability and dates. The home page describes your store and its social media accounts, and product, collection and article pages describe their breadcrumb trail.
- Breadcrumbs. Product, collection and article pages show a trail such as Home / Knitwear / Wool scarf. Turn it off with Show breadcrumbs in the section's settings.
- One main heading per page. See Headings below.
- Sharing previews. Links shared on social media show the page's title, description and image.
- Pages kept out of search results. Search results, the cart, customer account pages and the password page are marked so search engines don't list them.
- Fast, stable pages. Images are sized for each screen and load as customers reach them, and nothing jumps around as the page loads. Both count towards how search engines rank a page.
The theme never adds review or FAQ data of its own. Star ratings in search results need a reviews app that provides them.
Meta descriptions
A meta description is the short summary search engines may show under your page's title. Write one for your home page and your most important products and collections: one or two sentences, about 150 characters, that would make someone click.
- Home page: in your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Preferences and fill in Home page meta description. Upload a Social sharing image there too; it is used whenever a page has no image of its own.
- Products, collections, pages and blog posts: open the item in your admin, scroll to Search engine listing, click Edit and fill in the description.
If you leave a product, collection, article or page without one, the theme uses the start of its description or text, so there is always something. A description written for search reads better.
Headings
Each page has exactly one main heading (an H1), which tells search engines and screen readers what the page is about:
- Products, collections, articles, blogs and search: the title.
- Home page and pages: the first heading of the first section, such as the headline of an image banner or cover hero. On a page whose first section is the page's own text, it is the page title.
- If the first section has no heading, the page's title becomes the main heading behind the scenes, so no page goes without one.
Every other section heading is one level below. Leave heading blocks on Automatic and the outline stays correct as you move sections around. Choose a heading for what it says, not for its size: to make a heading bigger or smaller, change its size setting, not its level.
Alt text
Search engines read alt text to understand your images, and screen readers read it aloud. Add it to your product images and to the images you use in sections. Product, collection and article images without alt text use the item's title. How to add it, and what to write, is on Accessibility and performance.
An image that links somewhere, such as an editorial grid tile without a caption, needs alt text most of all: it is what the link is called.
Content
- Write product descriptions in your own words. Copying a supplier's text gives you the same page as every other store that sells it.
- Put the words customers search for in titles and headings naturally, once. Repeating them doesn't help.
- Use the handle (the end of the address) Shopify suggests from the title, and keep it once a page is live. If you must change it, tick Create a URL redirect so old links still work.
- Connect your store to Google Search Console and submit your sitemap, which Shopify keeps at
/sitemap.xml.