SEO and social sharing
Pawsome writes the tags that search engines and social networks read from the content you enter in Shopify admin. There are no SEO settings in the theme editor. You improve how your store shows up by filling in the right fields in Shopify admin, and by keeping a clear heading on each page.
What the theme adds to every page
Section titled “What the theme adds to every page”- A title tag: the page title, then your store name. A page filtered by a tag adds the tag, and the second and later pages of a list add the page number. If the title already contains your store name, the theme does not add it twice.
- A meta description, from the description set for the page in Shopify admin.
- A canonical link to the page’s main address, so search engines treat variations of the same address as one page.
- Open Graph tags: the title, description, address, store name and image that Facebook, Pinterest, messaging apps and others use for link previews. Product pages add the price and currency.
- Twitter card tags for a large-image card with the title and description. X takes the image from the Open Graph tags.
Shopify adds hreflang tags for your languages and markets itself, so the theme does not need to.
Structured data
Section titled “Structured data”Structured data describes a page in a format search engines read, in JSON-LD. Pawsome adds four kinds.
| Type | Where | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
| Product | Product pages | Name, up to six images, description, vendor as the brand, and an offer per variant with SKU, price, currency and stock status, for up to 100 variants |
| Article | Blog posts | Headline, image, publish and update dates, a description from the excerpt or the start of the post, the author and your store as publisher |
| BreadcrumbList | Product, collection and blog post pages, and pages you create in Online Store > Pages | The path from your home page to the page |
| FAQPage | Any page with an FAQ section that has Add FAQ structured data on | The questions and answers in the section |
Some details come from places you might not expect:
- Product ratings: the product data includes a star rating when a review app fills in Shopify’s standard product rating fields. Without a review app that does this, there is no rating.
- Article publisher logo: the article data uses Logo from Theme settings > Brand as the publisher logo. When that is empty, it uses the logo from your Shopify brand assets.
- FAQ data: Add FAQ structured data in the FAQ section is on by default. With two FAQ sections on one page, turn it off in one of them.
The theme adds no store-wide organization data and no data for collection lists or search pages.
Edit titles and descriptions
Section titled “Edit titles and descriptions”| Page | Where to edit |
|---|---|
| Home page | Online Store > Preferences, in Social sharing image and SEO |
| Products, collections, pages and blog posts | The item’s page in Shopify admin, in the Search engine listing section. Click the edit icon to change the title, description and address. |
Shopify recommends titles under 70 characters, ideally 60 or fewer, and descriptions around 160 characters. When a page has no description, its link preview uses your store’s description instead. See Shopify’s guide to titles and descriptions.
The sharing image
Section titled “The sharing image”The image in a link preview depends on the page:
- Products, collections and blog posts use their featured image, or the social sharing image when they have none.
- Every other page, including the home page, uses the social sharing image from Online Store > Preferences.
If you have not set a social sharing image, links to those other pages share without an image. Add one before you launch. The theme has no separate sharing image setting. See Shopify’s guide to social sharing images.
Alt text
Section titled “Alt text”Alt text describes an image to people using screen readers and to search engines. Pawsome reads it from the image itself, so you write it in Shopify admin, once per image.
- Product images: open the product, click the image, and edit its alt text.
- Collection and blog post images: edit the image on the collection or blog post page in Shopify admin.
- Images you pick in the theme editor, such as a slideshow photo, come from Content > Files. Click the file to open it and fill in Alt text.
A few sections ask for alt text of their own. Media with text and Featured video have an Alt text setting that describes the video. The Newsletter popup has Image alt text, which describes the banner and replaces the image’s own alt text when filled in.
Collection cards fall back to the card heading when an image has no alt text. See Shopify’s guide to the media editor.
Headings
Section titled “Headings”Each page should have one main heading, the H1, that says what the page is about. Pawsome sets it for you on most templates:
- Product pages: the Product title block, at Heading level Heading 1
- Collection pages: the collection title in the Collection banner section
- Blog and blog post pages: the blog title and the post title
- Pages: the page title in the Page section, while Show page title is on. In the
abouttemplate, the heading of the first section takes its place. - Search: the search heading
On the home page and other templates you build, the first section supplies the H1 when it is one of these: Slideshow, Image with text overlay, Featured video, Hot spots, Revealed image on scroll, Contact form or FAQ. For a slideshow, the first slide’s heading becomes the H1. The same sections lower on the page use H2.
A few edits remove or double the main heading:
- Removing the Collection banner from the collection template leaves collection pages with no H1.
- Starting the home page with a section not in the list above, such as Rich text, leaves the home page with no H1, unless you set one of its headings to Heading 1 with Heading level.
- A Product title block added to a Featured product section starts at Heading 1. On a page that already has a main heading, set its Heading level to Heading 2. The Featured product section’s starting layout already does this.