How To Do SEO in 2026: SEO Plan for Small Businesses

Search engine optimization (SEO) can help your online store attract shoppers without you having to pay for every click. More than half of shoppers (54%) rely on search engines to research products before buying, according to PwC’s Global Consumer Insights Pulse Survey. Showing up in those search results keeps your brand top of mind at the moment customers are deciding what to buy. 

Unlike other digital marketing channels that charge per click or impression, SEO compounds over time. Oral care brand Boka grew organic traffic 177% and organic revenue 51% after a multipronged SEO program. The strategy combined category page optimization, new category pages, and a long-running content calendar, according to a case study from its SEO partner. 

This guide breaks down how to do SEO for an ecommerce business, including identifying relevant keywords, writing content, and strengthening your site structure to improve your website’s visibility in organic search results.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization is the practice of improving where and how your website appears on search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant search queries. The goal is to make it easy for shoppers to find your products or services when they search and bring unpaid organic traffic to your site.

SEO generally involves three broad areas:

• On-page optimization. Good on-page SEO involves writing detailed product descriptions, building simple URLs, and using internal links.

• Technical optimization. Technical SEO means improving your site speed and page experience.

• Off-page optimization. Off-page SEO involves attracting links from other websites and improving brand mentions.

For an ecommerce store, SEO means:

• Making pages easy for search engines to understand

• Becoming an authoritative source in your niche

• Structuring your site so both your target audience and search engines can easily navigate your pages 

For example, if you sell handmade ceramics, you might write a descriptive product title like “handthrown stoneware mug” instead of just “mug,” link related products like matching bowls, and publish a ceramic care guide on your blog. These would all help you show up on Google and other search engines when someone searches for “handmade ceramic mugs.” 

SEO isn’t a one-and-done activity. As you add products, update collections, and publish content, your SEO work evolves with it, including recurring tasks like refreshing product descriptions or fixing broken links. Once a page ranks, it can keep bringing in traffic for months or years.

How to do SEO in 2026

• Do keyword research
• Optimize page content
• Improve your site structure
• Check your technical SEO
• Build authority
• Update and improve over time

Effective SEO comes down to a handful of repeatable practices that, over time, improve your search engine ranking. Here are six areas that cover most of what goes into a solid SEO strategy:

Do keyword research

Before you edit any page, find out what shoppers type into Google when they look for products like yours. Free SEO tools like Google Search Console, Google Trends, Google Analytics, and Google Keyword Planner can help you build a list of target words.

Keywords range from broad terms (seed keywords) to more specific terms (longtail keywords). Seed keywords, such as “sunscreen,” tend to have high search volume but lower buying intent as they’re general terms. Longtail keywords, such as “sunscreen for sensitive skin,” “travel size sunscreen,” or “sunscreen that doesn’t leave a white cast,” generally get fewer searches but attract shoppers with high buying intent.

Here’s a simple keyword research process:

Review existing search terms

In Google Search Console, open the Performance report and review the search terms your store already appears for. This gives you an initial list of keywords to target in later optimization work.

Find related searches

In Google Trends, enter one of the terms from your Search Console list. Start with a broad one like “sunscreen” rather than a longtail phrase. Change the date range to “Past month.” Check the “Top queries” and “Rising queries” sections for descriptive phrases, like “mineral sunscreen for sensitive skin.” These show you what shoppers are specifically looking for.

Check search volume and competition

In Google Keyword Planner, plug in the terms you gathered from Search Console and Google Trends to see roughly how many people search each one and how competitive it is. Prioritize keywords with a steady search volume that match what you sell.

Optimize page content

After keyword research, you’ll have a list of search terms. The next step is deciding which page each one belongs to and where to start.

Match each keyword to the right page. Each page should target one keyword that best describes what it’s about. Product pages target longtail, or descriptive keywords (“mineral sunscreen for sensitive skin”), while broad terms (“sunscreen”) target collections or category pages.

Prioritize pages already performing. In Shopify Analytics, open the “Sessions by landing page” report and review which products, collections, or blog posts already get traffic or sales. Update those first so that your SEO work starts where there’s existing demand.

Once you’ve matched keywords to pages, weave them into titles, descriptions, and supporting content:

On product pages

Incorporate the target keyword naturally into headers and descriptions. For example, Kettle & Fire targets “grass-fed beef tallow” by weaving it into drop-down descriptions, the product title, and FAQs. Use descriptive image filenames and alt text (for example, “grass-fed-beef-tallow-jar” rather than “IMG_4821”) so search engines and shoppers using screen readers know what each image shows.

In collection pages

Add a clear title, short description, filters, and descriptive product names. For example, Good American’s cropped jeans collection uses the title “Cropped Jeans,” with wash filters and descriptive product names to give search engines more context about the page.

On content pages

Publish blog posts and buying guides that answer questions shoppers may research before buying. For example, Diaspora Co.’s guide to dried chilis breaks down how to incorporate dried chili peppers into recipes and naturally connects this information to its spices. This content gives search engines a reason to surface the brand for ingredient-related searches, not just product queries.

Improve your site structure

Site structure is how your store’s pages connect. A simple structure gives shoppers a clear path from the homepage to collections to products, while helping search engines understand which pages are most important. 

Kyle Risley, senior SEO lead at Shopify, recommends linking to all collections in your main navigation to signal their importance. Then, add links where they naturally help the shopper, like a blog post explaining how to choose a helmet that links to relevant helmets.

When interlinking, however, Arthur Camberlein, technical SEO lead at Shopify, says to think about “users and accessibility over links for SEO.” In other words, each link should help the shopper take a useful next step, not just exist to help your SEO rankings.

Your web address counts too. Descriptive URLs tell shoppers and search engines what the page is about before they open it. For example, Gymshark uses /collections/black-leggings/womens for its women’s black leggings collection, which is more specific than a generic URL like /collections/leggings-1.

Shopify’s SEO overview brings these basics together in one place, with guidance on keywords, site structure, sitemaps, crawling, and other setup tasks to help manage SEO without starting from scratch. 

Check your technical SEO 

Technical SEO covers the behind-the-scenes settings that help search engines crawl and index your pages correctly. Shopify handles many of these tasks for you, but it’s still worth checking them with SEO tools when you add products, remove pages, change URLs, or redesign your store. Here are the key areas to review:

Sitemaps

A sitemap is a file that lists your store’s products, collections, pages, and blog posts. Most ecommerce platforms create these automatically, including Shopify. Submit this sitemap to Search Console, so Google has a clear map of your store. 

Redirects and broken links

When you delete a product, hide a blog post, or rename a collection, set up a redirect so the old URL sends shoppers to the closest current page. 

In Shopify, go to Content > Menus > View URL Redirect > Create URL Redirects, then add the old path under Redirect from and the new path under Redirect to. To catch URLs you may have missed, check the Pages report in Google Search Console for 404 errors, or your broken links, and redirect each one to the closest current page so shoppers don’t land on dead ends.

Page indexing

Use the Search Console Pages report to check whether Google has indexed your key product, collection, and content pages. This helps confirm that all your web pages can appear in search results. Pages that are not yet indexed will appear in the Not indexed table.

Page speed

Use PageSpeed Insights to check how quickly your pages load. As a benchmark, the main content should load in less than 2.5 seconds.

Image optimization

Compress product images and upload them in modern formats like WebP to keep pages fast.

Build authority

Backlinks are links from other websites to your store. They signal credibility to search engines, especially when the links come from relevant websites in your category. To earn backlinks, start with places where your brand already has a real connection:

Partner websites

If a supplier or collaborator already mentions your brand online, ask them to link to the most relevant page. For example, skin care brand Glow Jar has an ingredient glossary that explains terms shoppers may see on product labels. A supplier or wellness partner could link to a resource like this when discussing ingredient transparency.

Press and interviews

When your founder, product, or brand appears in an interview, gift guide, or roundup, ask the publisher to link to the page that best matches the mention. 

Useful resources

Create pages that other sites have a reason to cite. For example, cookware brand Blanc Creatives has a carbon steel care guide that explains how to season, cook with, clean, and troubleshoot carbon steel pans. A cooking publication, recipe site, or kitchenware partner could link to a resource like this when explaining cookware care.

Kyle from Shopify frames this as a process you do in stages. 

“First, nail the on-page for top product pages,” he says. “Second, build relevant internal links. Finally, start targeted outreach for backlinks.” 

In other words, backlinks work best after your own pages are useful and easy to navigate.

Update and improve over time

SEO is not a one-time project. Your store changes as you add products, retire old ones, update collections, publish content, or learn more about what users search for and the user intent behind those searches. Here are a few simple habits to maintain:

• Review search performance. In Search Console, look for pages with high impressions but low clicks. Update the title tag to be clearer, or write a good meta description if the page doesn’t clearly match the search.

• Refresh high-value pages. Update product descriptions, collection copy, blog posts, internal links, and image alt text when product details or customer questions change.

• Fix old links and outdated pages. If a product is no longer available or a URL has changed, redirect the old page to the most relevant page.

Technical SEO expert Arthur recommends focusing on “converting pages first and then queries, and finally the number of sessions.” That means SEO reviews should not only ask, “Did traffic go up?” or "Did our search engine ranking improve?" but also which pages and searches attract visitors likely to buy.