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Shopify Tech Fixes Guide

From FAQ-Off, the Calibre9 knowledge base

Introduction
This Guide
This guide is maintained by Lachlan “Lachlan ‘Cowie’ Cowie” Cowie.
If you discover any errors, out-of-date information, or would like extra information added, please leave a comment or send me a message on Slack.
Overview
This is our basic guide to technical SEO fixes. The purpose of this guide is to teach you everything you need to know to complete common fixes in Shopify.
Purpose
The purpose of completing tech fixes on a client’s site is to remove any blockers that might confuse a search engine, preventing it from understanding or indexing our client’s content correctly.
Research
SEO is an incredibly complex and broad field. We work with a much wider array of softwares and industries than most actual Web Developers. Don’t be embarrassed or afraid to research how to make a simple fix in a particular CMS, experienced people need to double check often, particularly when using software for the first time. A good place to start is the official documentation (and Google):
General Tips
My major tips for completing tech fixes on CMSs are as follows:
  • Styling changes are the most likely to cause issues on the site and with clients.
  • Changes to styling are often applied across every page with the same template (eg. if you change the look of one service page, it may affect every service page.)
  • Clients are much more likely to have an opinion (founded or otherwise) on the visual appearance of the site compared to copy or metadata.
  • Almost all CMSs will have basic SEO features (Page Titles, Meta Descriptions, Redirections)
  • Some CMSs (particularly custom ones), will be missing more advanced features ( code injection, canonical tags, ability to change

    tags). In these cases, you will need to decide if the logistics of coordinating on fixes with the web developer are worth the potential SEO benefits, or whether the client’s time/budget is better spent elsewhere.

  • Fully integrated CMS/CRM software like Shopify, Squarespace and Wix usually cannot be broken in any way that is irreversible (but major errors can be very time-consuming).
  • Do not touch anything not relevant to SEO such as language or shipping settings. These can be very difficult to reverse, especially without access to the client’s account/payment information.
  • Software like WordPress that is installed on third-party servers is riskier to make code changes to. There is a chance that you crash the entire CMS. Be particularly careful when making changes to PHP files.
  • If you can avoid it, never update the CMS, the theme files, the plugins or the apps on a client’s website. If the part of the client’s site is incompatible with the new version, the site can break in ways that will be very difficult to fix/reverse.
Shopify
Overview
Shopify is a Canadian company that distributes complete end-to-end point-of-sale software for online stores. It features the Shopify CMS which can be used to easily create complete and functional ecommerce stores.
Shopify is favoured by our ecommerce clients because it is user friendly, highly customizable and allows you to manage payment, analytics, stock, customer retention and localization all within the same platform.
Logging In
All of our Shopify clients are housed within our Shopify partners account (shopify@calibrenine.com.au).
If you are a specialist who requires access to your own clients, please contact Chris Pride and he will share access with your gmail address.
Once you have logged in to your Shopify account: → Click Log In on the specific site you want to access
→ Click on Sales channels then Online Store (in the sidebar) to access the CMS
→ Some of the content will be stored under Products or Content
Shopify Fixes
Alt Text
To add alt text to an image:
→ Click on Content (in the sidebar)
→ Click on Files (in the sidebar)
→ Find and open the correct image
→ Put the desired description into the Alt text box
→ Click Save
Article/Person Schemas
Article and person schemas are added to Blog posts automatically by Shopify.
To edit the author of an article:
→ Click on Content (in the sidebar)
→ Click on Blog posts (in the sidebar)
→ Change to the desired author into the Author box (only authors with accounts on the site will be allowed)
→ Click Save (bottom-left)
Canonicals
Changing the canonical tags of a page on Shopify is a bit annoying. It has to be done in the liquid code template for that page. The edits you make in the theme.liquid file will affect every page-site wide. Please follow the instructions carefully.
To change the canonical URL of a page:
→ Go to Settings (bottom of the sidebar)
→ Click on Metafields and metaobjects
→ Select the page type you want to add custom canonicals to (usually Products, Collections or Pages)
→ Click Add definition
→ Name it “Canonical URL”
→ Select single-line text for the type
→ Click Save
→ Click on Online Store then Themes (in the sidebar)
→ Click on the meatball menu (three dots) next to the Customize button and select Edit code
→ Open the layout dropdown and select theme.liquid
→ Find the line in the code where it says this:
→ Replace the code with this code:
Page Code
Product Code
Product Code
→ Click Save
→ Now that it’s set up correctly, go to the page/product/collection that you want to alter
→ Scroll down to Metafields and alter the Canonical URL
→ Click Save
Content/Interlinking Changes
To make changes to a page’s content:
→ Click on Online Store then Pages (in the sidebar)
→ Select the correct page
→ Edit the content
→ Click Save
To make changes to a blog post:
→ Click on Content then Blog posts (in the sidebar)
→ Select the correct post
→ Edit the content
→ Click Save
To make changes to a product:
→ Click on Products (in the sidebar)
→ Select the correct product
→ Edit the content
→ Click Save
To make changes to a collection:
→ Click on Products then Collections (in the sidebar)
→ Select the correct collection
→ Edit the content
→ Click Save
Heading Tags
Fixes to heading tags must be done in the theme files. They can be challenging, because the location of the heading tags will vary significantly from theme to theme. Use the Chrome dev tools and some patience to work out where the heading is stored.
To edit a heading tag:
→ Click on Online Store then Themes (in the sidebar)
→ Click on the meatball menu (three dots) next to the Customize button and select Edit code
→ Find the template where the content is stored (this is difficult, I recommend inspecting the heading on the front end (CMND + Shift + C in Chrome) to get some clues about the template names.
→ Change the heading tag
→ Click Save
Hreflang
→ Click on Online Store then Themes (in the sidebar)
→ Click on the meatball menu (three dots) next to the Customize button and select Edit code
→ Open the layout dropdown and select theme.liquid
→ Add your hreflang code before the end of the head
Sample Hreflang Code:
.htaccess File
It is not possible to access or edit the .htaccess file on a Shopify site. You can still perform redirects using the inbuilt redirect manager.
Local Business/Organization Schema
Local Business and Organization schemas can be added to Shopify sites by pasting them directly in the theme.liquid file. The theme.liquid affects every page on the entire site, so I recommend being careful (lest you fudge it).
First, make a schema for the site using either a Schema Generator or Chat GPT. Schemas are annoying to get the syntax right on, so I recommend not doing it by hand.
If you use ChatGPT, request it to “Make a JSONLD local business schema for a brand with these details . Put the schema inside script tags.”
A schema should usually include:
  • Brand Name
  • Business Type
  • Logo URL
  • Website URL
  • Phone Number
  • Street Address (Local Business)
  • Social Profiles
  • Opening Hours (Local Business)
To add a your global schema to the site:
→ Click on Online Store then Themes (in the sidebar)
→ Click on the meatball menu (three dots) next to the Customize button and select Edit code
→ Open the layout dropdown and select theme.liquid
→ Add your hreflang code before the end of the head
Meta Descriptions
To edit a meta description:
→ Click on Products then Products/Collections (for products/collections)
OR
→ Click on Online Store then Pages (for other kinds of pages)
→ Find the right page and click on it
→ Scroll down to where it says Search engine listing and then click the pencil icon
→ Put your desired description in the Meta description box
→ Click Save
Metadata (Bulk)
To edit Shopify metadata in bulk, the store will need to have a paid extension like Matrixify. If the site is very large and we will be doing a large amount of metadata optimisation, I recommend negotiating with the client to install Matrixify temporarily.
If you don’t believe it’s worth spending time convincing the client to install Matrixify, then strap yourself in and put on a podcast because you’re changing those meta titles one at a time, buddy.
Navigation/Menu Changes
To make changes to the site’s menu/navigation:
→ Click on Content then Menus (in the sidebar)
→ Select the correct menu (you should be able to tell by the menu’s name, or by comparing the items with the on-page menu)
→ Make the desired changes (You can add items, edit/delete items, or drag them to nest them under other items)
→ Click Save
Noindex Directives
Shopify has no easy way of noindexing pages in the UI. To add a noindex tag to a page you will need to make an edit to the theme.liquid file. Changes you make to the theme.liquid will affect every page site-wide please be careful.
To add a noindex tag to your page:
→ Click on Online Store then Themes (in the sidebar)
→ Click on the meatball menu (three dots) next to the Customize button and select Edit code
→ Open the layout dropdown and select theme.liquid
→ Add your noindex code before the end of the head
Noindex a specific page (sample code):
Noindex all pages that share a template (sample code):
You could also add a setting for noindexing to the UI (similar to the instructions for canonicals).
Noindex setting in the UI
By default, Shopify has no easy way to noindex pages in the UI. If you have an ongoing reason to need to add/remove noindex tags from individual pages/products then you can use this method instead of the one above.
To change the canonical URL of a page:
→ Go to Settings (bottom of the sidebar)
→ Click on Metafields and metaobjects
→ Select the page type you want to add custom noindex tags to (usually Products, Collections or Pages)
→ Click Add definition
→ Name it “Noindex”
→ Select True or False for the type
→ Click Save
→ Click on Online Store then Themes (in the sidebar)
→ Click on the meatball menu (three dots) next to the Customize button and select Edit code
→ Open the layout dropdown and select theme.liquid
→ Add your noindex code before the end of the head
Noindex Page Sample Code
Noindex Collection Sample Code
Noindex Product Sample Code
Once set up correctly:
→ Now that it’s set up correctly, go to the page/product/collection that you want to alter
→ Scroll down to Metafields and set the Noindex field to true
→ Click Save
Page Titles
To edit a page title:
→ Click on Products then Products/Collections (for products/collections)
OR
→ Click on Online Store then Pages (for other kinds of pages)
→ Find the right page and click on it
→ Scroll down to where it says Search engine listing and then click the pencil icon
→ Put your desired description in the Page title box
→ Click Save
Product Schemas
Product schemas are added automatically by most Shopify themes. In some rare cases the schema will have to be fixed in the template using Shopify’s structured data liquid filter.
Most of the time however, you just need to make sure that all of the product information is correct.
To edit product information/metafields:
→ Click on Products (in the sidebar)
→ Select the correct product
→ Edit the relevant fields
To edit product price, SKU, GTIN and shipping weight:
→ Click on Products then Inventory (in the sidebar)
→ Select the correct product
→ Edit the relevant fields
Robots.txt
Shopify has a default robots.txt that they use for all stores. This will include the sitemap and should be enough for most purposes. If you want to set specific rules for particular scrapers or block some sections of the website (like account/login pages) then you will need to create a custom file.
To add a custom robots.txt to the site:
→ Click on Online Store then Themes (in the sidebar)
→ Click on the meatball menu (three dots) next to the Customize button and select Edit code
→ In the templates folder, add a New file...
→ Name the new file robots.txt.liquid
→ Add the robots.txt rules using liquid code
Sample Code:
Redirections
To create a redirection:
→ Click on Content then Menus (in the sidebar)
→ Select URL redirects (top right)
→ Select Create URL Redirect (top right)
→ Enter the desired redirect
→ Click Save redirect
Redirections (Bulk)
To upload redirections in bulk:
→ Click on Content then Menus (in the sidebar)
→ Select URL redirects (top right)
→ Select Import (top right)
→ Download your redirects from the Google Sheet with File → Download → Comma-separated Values (.csv) (make sure to use the format specified in Shopify with “Redirect from” and “Redirect to” as column headers)
→ Drag your CSV file into Shopify
→ Click Import redirects
Social Media/Open Graph Tags
Open Graph tags are usually added automatically by the theme. If the theme does not add any tags, a template for the code required can be found here.
Most of the time, all you will have to do is ensure that the Shop name, Shop description and Shop image are correct, and that each page on the site has correct metadata.
To edit store-wide information (image, title, description):
→ Click on Online Store then Preferences (in the sidebar)
→ Edit the fields under Social sharing image and SEO
→ Click Save
Tracking Setup
To set up key event tracking on a Shopify site, see the Tracking Setup Guide:
URL Path Change
It is not (normally) possible to change the default URL pathways in Shopify. It can be done by making significant changes to the theme files in the rare circumstance that it is required.
URL Slug Change
To edit a URL slug:
→ Click on Products then Products/Collections (for products/collections)
OR
→ Click on Online Store then Pages (for other kinds of pages)
→ Find the right page and click on it
→ Scroll down to where it says Search engine listing and then click the pencil icon
→ Put your desired slug in the URL handle box
→ Make sure that the Create URL redirect box is ticked
→ Click Save
XML Sitemap
Sitemaps are handled automatically by Shopify. It is not possible to access or edit them directly.
Categories: Documentation Processes