How to choose a Shopify SEO agency
The short answer: write down what you need first, then pick the agency that can show a Shopify result like the one you want, has reviews you can check on more than one platform, and will tell you in writing what it does each month and how you leave. The ranking above tells you who has the strongest public evidence. This guide helps you decide who fits your store.
Most expensive mistakes happen before the first call. A store that cannot say what it wants gets sold a generic package. Work through the steps below in order.
Step 1: Define your requirement before you talk to anyone
Agencies quote what you ask for. Spend an hour on these six points and every call gets more useful.
01Where your store is today
Monthly revenue, the share that comes from organic search (GA4 shows this), how many products and collections you have, Shopify or Shopify Plus, and which countries and languages you sell in.
02One goal tied to revenue
Not "more traffic". Something like: grow non-brand organic revenue from collection pages in the US by the end of next year. One goal makes proposals comparable.
03What is in scope
Technical fixes (speed, duplicate URLs, filter pages), collection and product page copy, a blog or buying guides, links and PR, AI visibility, international setup, or a migration from another platform. Tick what you need and leave the rest out.
04What your team can do
Who can edit the theme, who approves copy, and how many developer hours you have. An agency that needs changes you cannot ship will stall.
05Budget and time
Plan for at least six months. Google's own guidance says an SEO usually needs four months to a year to make changes and see the benefit. A budget that only covers three months buys an audit, not results.
06How you will judge success
Pick two or three numbers you will check every month, such as organic revenue, non-brand clicks in Search Console and the number of collection pages on page one.
Your one-page brief
Put those six points on one page and send the same page to every agency. You will get proposals that answer your store, not a template, and you can compare them line by line.
Step 2: What to look for
These are the signs that separated the strongest agencies on this list from the rest. Each one is something you can check yourself in a few minutes.
- A Shopify result, not just an ecommerce one. Shopify has its own quirks: fixed URL paths, theme code, apps that slow pages down. Only 5 of the 11 agencies here have a dedicated Shopify page or Shopify case study; the rest show ecommerce work on other platforms.
- Reviews on at least two platforms you can click. 4 of the 11 have reviews on one platform or none we could verify. That is not a reason to rule them out, but ask for references.
- Named people. You should know who leads your account and who does the technical work, and be able to look them up.
- Monthly deliverables in writing. Pages fixed, pages written, links earned, a report. If they cannot list it, you cannot check it.
- Reporting in your own accounts. Search Console and GA4 belong to you. The agency gets access, and you keep the history when you part ways.
- Shopify technical fluency. Ask about duplicate product URLs, filter pages and structured data in the theme. A good agency answers in plain words without looking anything up.
- A real AI visibility service. 9 of the 11 sell it as its own service. Ask what it includes and for one client result.
- Their own site is in order. We audited each agency's site with CrawlRaven. An agency that blocks AI crawlers or has no business schema on its own site may miss the same things on yours. Each full profile shows what we found.
What to avoid: red flags
- Ranking guarantees. Google says plainly that no one can guarantee a number one ranking (Google Search Central). We take 10 points off any agency that promises one.
- Long lock-in contracts. Twelve months with no exit puts all the risk on you. Only 5 of the 11 agencies here state their contract terms publicly, so ask every one.
- "X links a month" packages. Bought links can earn your store a manual penalty. Good agencies earn links with PR and content.
- Reports with no revenue. Rankings for words nobody searches can always go up. Ask for organic revenue and orders.
- The agency owns your data or content. If the analytics, the dashboard or the copy stays with them when you leave, you start again from zero.
- Reviews you can only see on their site. A widget is a claim. One agency on this list carries a review-anomaly flag; check the platforms yourself.
- A proposal that never names your store. If it reads the same for any shop, the work will too.
- A theme rebuild or new app before any audit. Rebuilding first is expensive and often unnecessary. Audit, then decide.
Questions to ask on the first call
Take these into every call. The middle column is what a good answer sounds like; the right column is when to be careful. You do not need to ask them all. Pick the ones that match your brief.
Proof
Questions about proof| Ask | A good answer | Be careful if |
|---|
| Show me a Shopify store you grew. What changed, over what period? | A named store, a metric that matters (organic revenue or orders), a start and end date. | Traffic or ranking screenshots with no dates, or only non-Shopify examples. |
| Can I speak to a current client? | Yes, with a store close to yours in size or category. | Only past clients, or a long delay before anyone is available. |
| Where can I read reviews that you do not control? | Google, Clutch or Trustpilot links with recent reviews. | Only the testimonial slider on their own site. |
The work
Questions about the work| Ask | A good answer | Be careful if |
|---|
| What will you do in the first 90 days, month by month? | An audit, then a ranked fix list tied to pages that make money. | "A full SEO strategy" with no named deliverables. |
| How do you handle Shopify's duplicate product URLs and filter pages? | They explain canonical tags, the /collections/.../products/ paths and which filter pages should be indexed. | They have not heard of the issue, or say Shopify handles it all. |
| Who edits the theme, and who writes the copy? | Named people, a review step, and changes made on a duplicate theme first. | Edits straight into the live theme, or copy that is all AI with no editor. |
| How do you build links? | Digital PR, supplier and partner mentions, content people cite. | A fixed number of links a month, or link packages. |
Reporting
Questions about reporting| Ask | A good answer | Be careful if |
|---|
| What will the monthly report show? | Organic revenue and orders from GA4, Search Console clicks by page, and work done against the plan. | Keyword rankings and traffic only, with no revenue. |
| Whose accounts are the data and content in? | Yours. They get access to your Search Console and GA4 and you keep everything. | Their accounts, their dashboard, or content they keep if you leave. |
Money and contract
Questions about money and contract| Ask | A good answer | Be careful if |
|---|
| What exactly does the monthly fee include? | Hours or deliverables per month, in writing. | A vague retainer that can mean anything. |
| How do I end the contract? | Month-to-month or 30 days notice, with a handover of all work. | A 12-month lock-in with no exit, or a fee to leave. |
| Do you guarantee rankings? | No, with a clear reason why nobody can. | Yes. Any guarantee of a position is a warning sign. |
AI search
Questions about ai search| Ask | A good answer | Be careful if |
|---|
| What do you do to get my store named in ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews? | Specific work: product data, comparison and buying-guide pages, reviews and mentions on sites AI tools cite. | "Good SEO covers it" with no separate plan, or a big promise with no example. |
| Does AI recommend you for your own service? | They show you, or you check yourself and they are named. | They are not named and cannot explain why. |
Step 3: Compare proposals side by side
Get at least three proposals on the same brief. Score each one out of 5 on these six lines and add them up. The cheapest is rarely the winner, and neither is the one with the longest list of services.
Proposal scorecard| Line | What a 5 looks like |
|---|
| Fit with your brief | Every point in your brief is answered, and anything out of scope is said out loud. |
| Shopify proof | A named Shopify store with a dated result close to your goal. |
| Plan for 90 days | Named deliverables by month, starting with an audit and a ranked fix list. |
| People | You know who does the work and have met them on a call. |
| Reporting | Revenue-led report in your own GA4 and Search Console, with a set date each month. |
| Terms | Clear monthly fee, month-to-month or short notice, handover on exit. |
What a Shopify SEO agency costs
7 of the 11 agencies on this list publish a starting price; the other 4 only quote after a call. Here is what they stated in our check:
Published starting prices| Agency | Starting price | Contract |
|---|
| Thrive Digital | From A$550/mo | Not stated |
| RivalMind | $1,500 to $7,500+/mo | Not stated |
| Awkward Media | From $1,497/mo | Cancel any month |
| Pixite | From A$1,995/mo | Not stated |
| Zinc Digital | From £1,680/mo | Not stated |
| Vizion Interactive | Projects from $5,000 | Not stated |
| Maratopia | From £995/mo | Cancel with 1 month notice |
You will meet three pricing models:
- Monthly retainer. The most common. Covers ongoing technical work, content and reporting. Ask what the hours or deliverables are.
- One-off audit or project. Good if you have developers who can carry out the fixes. Expect a document and a ranked list, not results on their own.
- Hourly or consulting. Useful for a second opinion or a migration check before you switch themes or platforms.
A useful rule: if the fee is more than the organic revenue you could add in a year at a realistic growth rate, the store is not ready for an agency yet. Start with an audit and fix the basics in-house.
Agency, freelancer or in-house?
Agency, freelancer or in-house compared| Option | Best when | Watch out for |
|---|
| Agency | You need several skills at once (technical, content, links) and want one team to own the result. | Junior staff on your account after a senior sales call. |
| Freelancer | Your need is narrow, such as a technical clean-up or collection page copy, and the budget is small. | One person means one point of failure and limited hours. |
| In-house | SEO is a main channel and you have enough work for a full-time hire. | Hard to hire well without someone who can judge SEO skill. |
The first 90 days: what good looks like
01Month 1: access, audit and a plan
They get access to Search Console, GA4 and the theme, crawl the store, and send a ranked list of fixes tied to the pages that make money.
02Month 2: technical fixes and priority pages
The biggest technical issues are fixed on a duplicate theme and pushed live, and the first collection pages get better titles, copy and internal links.
03Month 3: content and the first real report
New pages or guides go live, and the report shows what changed in clicks and organic revenue, page by page, against the plan.
If nothing has shipped by day 90, that is your answer. Most good agencies will agree to a 90-day review written into the contract.
Keep an eye on the work yourself
You do not need to be an SEO to check an agency. Watch three things every month: organic revenue in GA4, non-brand clicks by page in Search Console, and whether the issues in the audit are actually gone in a fresh crawl. CrawlRaven puts all three in one place, so you can see what changed and whether it moved revenue. See the plans.
SEO Locale
ClickSlice
Q Agency
Pearl White Media
Thrive Digital
RivalMind
Awkward Media
Pixite
Zinc Digital
Vizion Interactive
Maratopia
Aditi Chaturvedi, CrawlRaven
