Change SEO titles and descriptions in Shopify

Every product, collection, page and blog post in Shopify has two titles. The Title field is the name on the page, and Shopify turns it into the page's H1. The Page title in the search engine listing is the title tag Google shows. Paste your On-Page Mapping's meta title into Page title, and change Title only when the H1 should change too.

Leave Page title blank and your theme uses the item's title with your store name.

Change a product or collection

To change a product's or collection's title tag and meta description:

From your Shopify admin, go to Products, or Products > Collections.
Click the product or collection.
In the Search engine listing section, click the pencil icon.
Paste the new meta title into Page title and the description into Meta description.
Click Save.

From Shopify: Adding and updating products and Collection settings

Change a page or blog post

Pages live in Online Store > Pages. Blog posts live in Content > Blog posts. Open one and click the pencil icon in the Search engine listing preview section, then change Page title and Meta description and click Save.

From Shopify: Adding and editing pages and Working with blog posts

Change the homepage

Go to Online Store > Preferences. Enter the title and meta description in the Social sharing image and SEO section, then click Save.

Shopify allows 70 characters in a title and suggests keeping it to 60. It recommends 160 characters for a description.

From Shopify: Online store preferences and Adding keywords

Change the H1

Shopify builds the H1 of a product, collection, page or blog post from its Title field. To change the H1, change Title and save. The Page title in the search engine listing stays as it is. Shopify doesn't document the homepage's H1, which comes from your theme.

From Shopify: Adding keywords

Change the URL

Change the URL handle in the same search engine listing panel. On pages and blog posts, Create a URL redirect is ticked for you, so the old address forwards to the new one. On collections, you choose whether to create the redirect. Shopify's product guide mentions no redirect option, so after changing a product's handle, check the old address.

To add a redirect by hand, go to Content > Menus, click View URL Redirects, then Create URL redirect. The /products, /collections and /pages parts of your URLs can't be changed.

From Shopify: URL redirects

Add image alt text

On a product, click a product image to open its preview, click Add alt text, type it, and click Save alt text. Shopify allows 512 characters and recommends 125 or fewer.

For a collection's or blog post's featured image, open the collection or post, click Update under the image, then Edit image. Enter the alt text and click Save.

From Shopify: Adding alt text to product media and Adding keywords

Hide a page from search

To hide a product, page or blog post from search engines while it stays live:

Go to Settings > Metafields and metaobjects.
Under Metafield definitions, select Products, Pages or Blog posts, then click Add definition.
Name it SEO Hidden, set Namespace and key to seo.hidden, choose Integer and One value, set the maximum value to 1, and save.
Open the product, page or post, set SEO Hidden to 1 in its Metafields section, and save.

It also drops the item from your sitemap and your store's own search. A product can also be set to Unlisted, which keeps it off search engines and your sitemap with no metafield. Shopify documents no way to hide a collection.

From Shopify: Hiding a page from search engines

Check it worked

Run the live page through the free Meta tag checker. It shows the title, description, H1 and robots tag the page serves now. When the change is live, tick Mark done on the page's row in On-Page Mapping.