The Best Shopify Theme For SEO & Statistical Research Why

Introduction

If you’re looking for the best Shopify theme for SEO with quantifiable and measurable statistics, instead of reading and believing affiliate articles at the top of Google written by someone who thinks that the term ‘SEO-friendly’ in a theme’s description means that a theme is good for SEO… then please continue reading this article…

The Best Shopify Theme For SEO: View RankHigherTheme v4.0

We all know scaling organically with Shopify is hard – all you have to do is read SEO issues Shopify and you’ll see that ‘themes’ play a significant role when it comes to how well your store can rank in the search engines to drive organic traffic and conversions and it is why your theme choice is so important.

But the problem is that 99.9% of Shopify themes on the market, either via the Shopify theme store or on 3rd party theme marketplaces, are NOT designed by SEO experts, they are designed by web developers and designers who’ve never had or taken the responsibility for how well their theme performs in the search engines once it goes live. We do.

What Makes A Good Shopify Theme For SEO?

When you look at all of the research from some of the world’s leading SEO authorities like Neil Patel, Search Engine Land, Moz, etc. they all come up with pretty much the same answers when it comes to what you should be looking for in a Shopify theme if it’s going to be good for SEO.

There are a significant number of factors that make a Shopify theme good for SEO but here are the key elements as outlined by many well-known experts.

1. Responsive Design: A theme that is mobile-friendly and responsive across multiple devices is crucial, as Google includes mobile-friendliness in its ranking factors.
2. Speed and Performance: A fast-loading site is preferred by search engines. A theme should be optimized for speed to ensure users don’t have to wait long for the website to load.
3. SEO-friendly URLs: Your Shopify theme should allow for the customization of URLs, enabling you to include relevant keywords.
4. Structured Data: Google uses structured data (also known as schema markup) to better understand the content of your website. A good Shopify theme should support the inclusion of structured data.
5. Header Tags: Themes should allow customization of header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.). These tags help search engines understand the content structure.
6. Clean Code: A well-coded theme is more likely to be favored by search engines. Messy code can slow down your website and cause indexing issues.
7. Image Optimization: Image alt attributes should be easy to update, as search engines use these to understand images on your site. The theme should also support techniques like lazy loading, which improves page load times etc.
8. Social Media Integration: Social signals are another factor that search engines consider, so a theme that makes sharing to social media platforms easy is beneficial.
9. Easy Navigation: A well-structured, easy-to-navigate site can help search engines understand your site content, and it also improves user experience.
10. Support for Blogging: Content is crucial for SEO. A Shopify theme that has robust blogging features can help you regularly add fresh, relevant content to your site.

I agree with all of the above yes, but do however find that his list is somewhat unhelpful, why, because every Shopify theme has ability to have all of the above so it’s difficult to quantify and separate the good from the bad.

It’s important to remember though, that while the theme plays a part in SEO, there are many other on-page and off-page factors that also affect your rankings and SEO.

When you learn our ecommerce SEO process for example, you’ll see that we attribute about 50% of the SEO process to technical, design, and UX which is why your theme choice is so important.

RankHigherTheme® Background

After working in SEO since 2006 and after starting my SEO and growth marketing agency back in 2010, I have been reverse engineering Shopify (and other ecommerce platforms) to get them to perform better in the search engines for quite some time.

My agency used to worked with a small number of high-value ecommerce SEO clients using Platforms like Magento, Woocommerce, PrestaShop, and Bigcommerce. For years, I never touched the Shopify platform because it simply wasn’t great for SEO at all.

Pre 2021, Shopify was known for its core technical SEO issues:

1. Forced hierarchical structure [not perfect for link equity distribution]
2. Blocked Robots.txt file back then [not perfect for controlling which pages Google crawls or not]
3. Product Filter Pages [are either blocked from the search engines altogether or cause mass content duplication penalties] 
4. Images are delivered via Shopify’s Content Distribution Network [can’t fully optimize images]
5. 3rd Party App Installations [many cause major technical SEO issues that hinder organic performance and have no regard for SEO].

However after many of my clients migrated to the platform, I had to start working with it and do the best I could with it.

I got tired of unraveling other theme developers’ technical SEO mess, so in 2019, along with my expert team, I set out on a mission to develop the world’s best Shopify theme for SEO.

We spent nearly 18 months and invested hundreds of thousands of dollars developing what we now genuinely believe is the world’s best Shopify theme for SEO, speed, and conversions.

This exclusive theme is used by 100’s of Shopify retailers across the world (including many ShopifyPlus stores) is the culmination of my life’s work in SEO, ecommerce, and now theme development.

Back then it was built in Shopify 1.0 but now it’s built in Shopify 2.0 and it’s called RankHigherTheme® and here are the scientific facts why it really is the best Shopify theme for SEO.

The Best Shopify Theme For SEO Based On Facts Not Fiction

Despite what you might read at the top of the search engines by affiliate marketers claiming to know what the best Shopify theme for SEO is, there are only a limited number of quantifiable and measurable statistics that you can look at to help you decide for yourselves which is the best Shopify theme for SEO.

The most important measurement tool to measure how good a theme is for SEO, is Google’s PageSpeedInsights.

What is Google’s Page Speed Insights And Why is it An Important Tool For Measuring SEO?

Google PageSpeed Insights (PSI) is considered one of the best tools for SEO for a few key reasons:

• Developed by Google: Since Google is the search engine giant, their tool reflects the way they assess website performance. PSI uses the same technology (Lighthouse) that Google uses for internal website evaluation, giving you valuable insights into what Google might be looking for.
• Focus on Core Web Vitals: PSI prioritizes metrics that Google has explicitly stated as ranking factors, especially the Core Web Vitals. These metrics measure aspects like Largest Contentful Paint (loading speed), First Input Delay (interactivity), and Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability). Optimizing for these directly addresses factors that Google considers important for a good user experience.
• Free and Actionable: PSI is a completely free tool that anyone can use. It doesn’t just provide a score; it offers specific recommendations on how to improve your website’s speed and user experience. This actionable advice helps you make data-driven decisions to enhance your SEO.

However, it’s important to remember that PSI isn’t the only factor in SEO, but it’s one of the few tools out there that can crawl ANY store or theme that will give you a global benchmark score to compare.

This free tool assesses 5 key metrics:

1. Core Web Vitals Assessment – For mobile & desktop (pass or fail)
2. Performance Score – For mobile & desktop (0 – 100) 
3. Accessibility Score – For mobile & desktop (0 – 100)
4. Best Practices Score – For mobile & desktop (0 – 100)  
5. SEO – These checks ensure that your page is following basic search engine optimization advice for mobile and desktop (Score: 0-100)

Although there are other metrics that can be assessed for SEO in general, these are the main metrics that can be used to measure how good a Shopify theme is for SEO.

If these metrics alone were used to determine which is the best Shopify theme for SEO (not well written affiliate articles at the top of Google) then there would only be one clear winner, and that is RankHigherTheme® v4.0 Xclusive.

Here are the reasons and the stats and research to prove it:

These are most (if not all of the themes) mentioned in the affiliate articles on the first page of Google all over the world for the search phrase ‘best shopify theme for SEO’.

When you look at the stats here, I’m sure you’ll be shocked and surprised at the results and scores from the themes that are supposed to be the best for SEO. Most of them don’t even pass Core Web Vitals which is astonishing to view!

Google’s PSI tool doesn’t lie and next to prove that these scores are accurate, you will see a live live link to the scores of every theme mentioned.

Theme	Device	Core Web Vitals	Performance	Accessibility	Best Practices	SEO
RankHigherTheme® – XCLUSIVE	Mobile	Pass	88	90	96	100
View Live PSI Report	Desktop	Pass	98	76	96	100
Booster Fashion Theme – Captiva	Mobile	Pass	72	87	96	100
View Live PSI Report	Desktop	Pass	95	80	96	92
Shopitimized	Mobile	Failed	38	76	71	92
View Live PSI Report	Desktop	Pass	76	73	93	92
Turbo Portland	Mobile	Pass	54	82	75	82
View Live PSI Report	Desktop	Failed	96	82	74	82
Impulse	Mobile	Failed	57	90	75	66
View Live PSI Report	Desktop	Failed	96	82	74	82
Warehouse	Mobile	Failed	80	90	75	66
View Live PSI Report	Desktop	Failed	97	96	74	66
Prestige	Mobile	Failed	77	90	75	66
View Live PSI Report	Desktop	Passed	96	96	74	66
Dawn Theme	Mobile	Passed	80	96	93	66
View Live PSI Report	Desktop	Failed	98	96	93	66
Palo Alto	Mobile	Failed	62	90	75	66
View Live PSI Report	Desktop	Failed	41	96	93	66
Envy – Boho	Mobile	Failed	54	96	75	66
View Live PSI Report	Desktop	Failed	89	96	74	66
Cornerstone – Artisan	Mobile	Failed	63	90	75	66
View Live PSI Report	Desktop	Failed	93	96	74	66
Broadcast	Mobile	Failed	62	90	75	66
View Live PSI Report	Desktop	Passed	93	96	74	66
Capital – Berlin	Mobile	Failed	45	90	75	66
View Live PSI Report	Desktop	Passed	84	96	74	66

What you’ll notice from the new research above is that the themes that are on Shopify’s Theme Store, they all score 66 for SEO on both mobile and desktop.

This is because that Shopify ‘blocks’ the themes from being crawled and indexed in the search engines so they can only be scored by the looks of it to a limit of 66.

What you will need to do get a more accurate SEO score for each of these themes is to check ‘stores using this theme’ on the theme page in Shopify.

Here’s what was found by checking just one store on one of the more popular themes Impulse:

100 for SEO yes, but look how low the mobile performance is at just 36. What’s quite evident is that you shouldn’t believe everything you read when it comes to best theme for SEO, just because an article at the top of Google says so.

Perform your research for yourself, and you decide for yourself too.

RankHigherTheme® Features And Functionality

As well being the best Shopify OS 2.0 theme for SEO, the fastest theme on the market for mobile and desktop (as of today’s research) – it is a feature rich theme perfect for fashion and apparel, or any other sector for that matter.

This theme has over 90+ features and functionality at its core which are being constantly developed and enhanced but in brief, this theme has:

• AAP® Technology
• Mobile First Design
• A Page Load Speed of 577ms (desktop & mobile)
• Built-in, Fully Optimizable Filter Pages (only one of its kind in the world)
• Many built-in SEO & conversion-boosting features
• App Savings of over $3K per year

Here’s a detailed list of all of the features and functionality which will hopefully justify why I think it’s the best…

CORE SEO FEATURES

AAP®Technology

AAP stands for algorithm-aligned platform. This theme has algorithm-aligned, optimized code for all devices ensuring maximum performance on all versions of the search engines for desktop and mobile search.

Responsive Tech

This theme has 2 development sections for both desktop and mobile customizations. This ensures the theme UX can be optimized for all devices no matter what mobile, desktop or tablet device you are accessing the internet from.

491ms Page Load

With Shopify OS 2.0 and our optimized HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript files, this will be the fastest Shopify theme on the market by far. Our themes have always had a page load under one second, but this will be our fastest theme ever. Please note, however, that this may increase after adding apps.

Learn More: The Fastest Shopify 2.0 Shopify Theme

Non-conflicting Product Filters

As standard, our theme comes with built-in, non-conflicting product filters which allow you to have up to 8 x main product filter types and unlimited sub-filters under each type. All filters are canonicalized correctly to avoid root collection page duplications.

***AAP® SEO Product Filters***

The only built-in product filter tech in the world with fully optimizable product filter pages (URLs, H1-H6 Tags, Meta Titles, Meta Descriptions, Indexable Content, ALT=tags). Unleash 1000’s more high-converting landing pages in the search engines in weeks. Average organic visibility increase = 1900% in just weeks.

Learn More: AAP® Shopify Product Filters.

Structured Data Markup

Google Search works hard to understand the content of a page. No programming or apps are required, all our themes come with advanced structure data markup to enrich your store’s content in the search engines and when displaying your content across social media platforms.

Open Graph & Twitter Cards

Open Graph & Twitter Cards markup are protocols that allow you to control and manage the data that is displayed when a URL is shared on a social network such as Facebook. Ensuring the right content and information is shared is essential for your social channels.

Collection Page Content

Most themes in the theme store focus on design, not how well your store will perform in the search engines when it goes live. Ours do. Each collection page has content sections pulled through as standard which are a basic necessity for SEO and for helping your collection pages rank in the search engines.

Banner Typography Overlays

Keyword-rich text on banners that are crawlable by Google allows you to pass link equity from one page to another helping specific pages rank higher for chosen keywords. All of our themes have this ability on dynamic banners and overlays.

Lazyload Images

Introducing Lazyload, equipped into the backend of the theme through all imagery, decreasing contextual paint and faster loading images for a faster store. This is featured throughout all areas of our themes where images are involved, making them load faster and quicker.

Page Template Optimization

Minified and out of the way. All our code has been re-coded and minified for easier management and faster loading times. Our key goal is to improve load speed on all page template types.  The checkout, for example, now loads twice as fast as it did previously.

THEME SETTINGS

Brand Identity

Customize your store to reflect your brand with logo and additional mobile logo options with the addition of a favicon to upload, visible as bookmark icons on Smartphones and tablets.

Shopify & Google Typography

Choose from over 100 different font types ranging from Google’s font library to Shopify’s own hand-picked fonts. Our theme can use up to 3 fonts at any one given time. H1 – H6 tags are fully customizable.

Customizable Site Colors

Introducing Lazyload, equipped into the backend of the theme through all imagery, decreasing contextual paint and faster loading images for a faster store. This is featured throughout all areas of our themes where images are involved, making them load faster and quicker.

THEME STYLE

Choose from different site widths, switch between a full-width site layout like a lot of new modern designs, or keep things contained for a classic look and feel with a range of different site sizes to suit.

Custom CSS

Customize the look of your theme design with the ability to add custom CSS code.

Built-in Social Icons

Add your social profiles once for them to appear across the whole site where social icons appear with the ability to switch them on or off.

Theme Architecture

You now have the ability to add Shopify blocks and sections across the whole theme and to an area of your store in an easy-to-use, logical hierarchical structure.

App Embeds

With our new theme architecture, you can easily add apps through the theme customizer without the need for coding experience.

Enhanced Theme Editor

Instead of needing to drill down into different sections, the theme editor now displays a tree view of all the content on a page in the sidebar making it easier to add, remove or hide sections or blocks.

Modular App Control

App developers can now build UI components that can be added, removed, and configured directly through the theme editor without having to touch a theme’s code. This means uninstalls are also cleaner, with ghost code automatically removed.

Asset Management 

Add your app’s supporting assets to your theme app extensions for fast hosting via Shopify’s CDN, and easily reference those assets from within your theme extension’s app blocks. 

Metafields

Our updated theme editor allows merchants to add metafields and properties without the use of APIs or code. This means merchants can add the exact content they need to the product page, like introducing a space for buyers to include a size chart or ingredient list. 

Multi-currency

Sell products worldwide by allowing customers to pay for goods in their own country’s currency using our easy-to-use currency picker. This feature is custom-built and comes as part of the theme.

Emails & Newsletter Integration

Introducing Klaviyo. We’re an official Klaviyo Partner and our theme integrates with it seamlessly. Use this beyond our typical Mailchimp option, and easily switch between the two.

Wishlist Functionality

Add a free wishlist app to your store and allow customers to add products to a wishlist so they can buy them later. Icon already included so only a simple free install is required to activate this functionality. 

Password Page

Get the look you want with a fully configurable password page for when your store is about to launch.

HEADER OPTIONS

Multi-tiered Top Header

Our theme can have up to 3 x top header sections [Top, Upper & Lower & Mobile Header Sections] making it one of the most customizable headers on the market with unlimited header layout options including additional mobile responsive options for images and colors.

Mobile Branding

Change the way your brand looks and feels with desktop and mobile brand options. Choose the size, position, and choice of desktop branding on mobile for the perfect UX.

Social Profiles

Seamlessly promote your social channels in the top header after entering your social profile URLs in theme settings. Easily toggle them on or off and reposition them to a location that suits you.

Strapline

editable top header for specific messaging to your users. Promotions, free delivery, and whatever you wish to promote at the time you want to. Even change font colors and weighting to get your message to stand out. Mobile strapline separate.

Contact Information

Choose the contact information you wish to display in your top header and build more trust with your potential customers to help with increasing conversions.

Mega Menus

Customize fonts, layouts, positioning, and order for your menu items. Choose from advanced mega menu options with customizable columns and images with up to 4 columns or go for a more standard dropdown sub menu.

Store Search

Choose from 3 different search bar styles as well as being able to customize icon position, colors, and background. Included predictive search so product suggestions appear when keyword search match your products.

Strapline

The editable top header for specific messaging to your users. Promotions, free delivery, and whatever you wish to promote at the time you want to. Even change font colors and weighting to get your message to stand out. Mobile strapline separate.

HOMEPAGE OPTIONS

Dynamic Grids

Create unlimited homepage layouts with highly customizable banner grid blocks with customizable fonts and typography settings as well as 3 styles of CTA buttons. 

Transitional Featured Slider

Add transitional sliders and video content to create a unique-looking, modern, and current theme design, and now you can change your banner for mobile separately. 

Site Popup

Grab your visitor’s attention with customizable popup advertisements or promotional banners. Configure these further by integrating with your Klaviyo or MailChimp account and displaying a newsletter form.

Videos

Give more of a visual impact and keep customers’ attention retained with responsive videos that are now easily added to your store.

Featured Products Grids

Display a list of products from any chosen or customized collection in a clean and eye-catching grid layout. Choose how many products to show, and how many columns to use.

Blog Post Grids

Display your latest blog posts from an unlimited number of blogs in a grid layout of your choice – new character limits to ensure you maintain a sleek homepage design.

Integrated Newsletter Section

Seamlessly integrate your automated marketing software using our using flexible Newsletter signup module. Also available as a popup and comes in either a boxed horizontal banner or a boxed overlay style with customizable images.

Dynamic Instagram Feed

Integrate with your existing Instagram account and pull through your latest Instagram images straight on to your homepage for a unique, bespoke look and feel.

Customizable Footer Columns

Add elements of style, brand, navigation, and upsells in your footers. Choose up to 4 blocks with options of additional information, Images, Menus, Social and Newsletter.

COLLECTION PAGE OPTIONS

SEO Content Sections

Optimise collection pages for better search engine performance by adding customizable and indexable content to help your collection page rankings. Collection page content is a must.

Non-conflicting Product Filters

As standard, our theme comes with built-in, non-conflicting product filters which allow you to have up to 8 x main product filter types and unlimited sub-filters under each type. All filters are canonicalized correctly to avoid root collection page duplications.

Non-conflicting Product Filters

Our built-in, non-conflicting product filters in the sidebar eliminate keyword, metadata, and content cannibalization so you can avoid Google penalties and they won’t harm your organic rankings, traffic, and conversions.

Breadcrumbs

Fully customizable breadcrumb section in terms of height, colors and fonts etc. Breadcrumbs are not only essential for navigational UX but also help with link equity distribution.

Sort by Filters

Non-duplicating sort by filters including A-Z and Price – high to low and now with price range filters etc.

Sidebar Layout Options 

Choose between 3 sidebar layout options – left, right, or hidden giving you a highly customizable design feature.

Sale Sash’s

Use sale sashes to grab visitors’ attention and promote sale prices on any products with a compare-at price. Fully editable sah text.

Color Swatches

Customizable Color Swatches as Filters in the sidebar with personalized HEX codes. Any filter that uses a color value will be magically turned into a swatch for a more visually appealing search experience.

Display Variants

Non-page duplicating sort by filters including A-Z and Price – high to low and now with price range filters etc.

Quick View Pop-up

Our new quick view pop-up on all collection page products allows visitors to view all product info and immediately add to the cart to improve conversions. You have the option to toggle this feature on or off.

Sale & Promo Sash’s

Use sale and promo sashes to grab visitors’ attention and promote sale prices on any products with a compare-at price. Fully editable sale text.

Product Image Gallery

Add multiple images to the image scroller for ease of use on mobile, desktop, and tablet devices.

Product Promotions

Add additional information to promote your product with promotional bars, and calls to action.

Product Elements

Change the elements of your product page with the function to change the cart text, colors, and typography, enable size guides, compare prices, sale price, and social sharing.

Stock Control

Display the information you need the customer to see, and add informative information on ‘In Stock, Out of Stock information, tooltips, and sale information.

Product Info

Change the way the customer sees product information, adjust Vendor, SKU, Delivery, and Reviews with much more to display.

Product Identifiers

Conversion boosting product page designs. Display key product identifiers such as SKUs and brands to help your universal product codes to get found in the search engine results pages including Google Shopping. 

Product Colour Swatches

Display color swatches instead of variant names for a more appealing user experience. Swatches are also available for most sizes including XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL etc.

Product Variants

Show variants as either a single drop-down menu, multiple drop-down menus (If you have colors and sizes as variants), or simple swatches.

PRODUCT PAGE FEATURES

Size Guides

Improve your product page conversions by activating a size guide link on a product page to provide your users with essential information about your products. Includes images, banners, tables, and text. 

Sale Price Display

Automatically display % off and sales prices when a compare-at price is added to your products.

Product Accordion Tabs

Provide conversion-boosting information about your products at a time your visitors need it. Add customizable product tabs for information such as shipping times, refunds, terms & conditions etc.

Integrated Product Reviews

Add the free Shopify Review app and instantly integrate product reviews on your product page. Add the Stamped.io extension for this app and have a fully automated review system to help increase click-through rates on your products with review starts against your products in the search engines.

Item In-Stock indicator

Inform your users of your stock levels on your product pages to help generate urgency of purchases.

Customizable USP Banner

Use customizable product info text to help convert more visitors – low in stock – offer ends soon – hurry while stock lasts – last few remaining etc.

Related Products

Display related products relating to the currently viewed product that has similar tags and collections with the ability to change image ratio size.

Flexible Product Page Content

Brand new flexible product pages, with the themes new flexibility merchants can now add, hide and arrange the structure of the product page details however they wish to.

Single Product Page

With Flexible product page content and upgraded theme architecture, merchants can now create single product pages for advanced single product add pages and upsells.

Image Gallery

We now have an optional Image Gallery or Slider for the product page which can enhance your products with images or videos.

Out of Stock Tooltip Pop-ups

If an item is out of stock, display more information in the form of a tooltip. For example, you could let visitors know when an item will be back in stock.

IMPROVED CHECKOUT

Improved UX

Checkout on Online Store 2.0 is considerably faster, allowing any store to process tens of thousands of transactions per minute. The checkout has undergone serious upgrades. It can now handle seven times the volume and can also be modified with extensions that will allow new features to be integrated in sections that were previously untouchable.

Buy Now, Pay Later

Shop Pay Installments will allow customers to buy now, pay later, or split their bills into four interest-free installments. The installment option, however, is available only in the US for orders between $50 and $1000.

Go Cart – Mini Cart

Introducing our new drop-out mini cart. This is our newly dynamic drop-out cart, customers can now edit items, add items, and get to where they need to be right from the mini cart. Once a product has been added from the Quickview or product page, it will instantly be added to the new mini cart.

Flexible Product Page Content

Brand new flexible product pages, with the themes new flexibility merchants can now add, hide, and arrange the structure of the product page details however they wish to.

BLOG FEATURES

Integrated Social Sharing Icons

Allow visitors to seamlessly share your content to raise your brand’s profile across all of the major social media platforms and channels.

Styled Blog Overview Page

Display a list of all your site’s blog posts using a new, stylish modern grid layout to help promote your store’s content.

New Styled Blog Post 

A stylish and modern new blog layout is added with an integrated social sharing feature at the bottom of a blog post to help syndicate your store’s content.

Customisable Blog Sidebar

 A new flexible, highly customizable sidebar allows you to promote your store’s top content, and collection pages, or even add advertising banners in the sidebar of any blog post.

Conclusion

Choosing the right Shopify theme can have an enormously positive impact on your organic rankings, traffic, and conversions so you’ll need to choose wisely.

If you are looking for an exclusive Shopify 2.0 theme that has been designed and expertly engineered by SEO experts, then look no further than RankHigherTheme® as it is proven with research (Google’s tools) that it’s the best.

Additional Reading:

Benefits Of Shopify OS 2.0

10 Compelling Reasons To Upgrade Your Shopify Theme

RankHigherTheme® Case Studies & Reviews

Shopify Speed Optimization