What people mean by a Shopify SEO company
A Shopify SEO company is any business that sells search work for Shopify stores as a product. The label covers agencies, studios, software firms with a services arm, and newer services that publish content at scale. They look similar on a website and behave very differently once you are a client.
That is the real problem with searching for one. A page of results gives you ten businesses with the same promises, the same stock photos and the same phrases about growth. You cannot tell them apart from the outside, so you need a method that works from the inside.
The method in this page is simple. Compare companies on the work they would ship for your specific store, not on how they describe themselves. A company is only as good as its output on a store like yours, and you can ask for a preview of that output before you pay.
If you are still working out which kind of help you want, start with our overview of who to hire for Shopify SEO. This page assumes you have decided to look at companies and want to compare them fairly.
Compare on your store, not on their pitch
Every company has a case study and a testimonial. Neither says what the company would do for you. The useful comparison puts every company on the same task, on your store, and looks at the results.
Ask for a sample. One page, such as a rewritten collection page or a product description set, produced for your actual store. Some companies will do it free as part of a sales process. Others will charge a small fee. Both are fine. Companies that refuse to show any work before payment are asking for a lot of trust.
Ask for a named plan. Which pages would they work on first, and why? A real answer names collections and products from your store. A template answer talks about a three-phase approach.
Ask how it will be measured. What will you see, in what tool, and by when? The honest answer involves Google Search Console and a baseline.
Ask what would be shipped in 90 days. Pages, fixes, articles. Counted and named.
Lay the answers from each company next to each other. The differences between them are usually dramatic once you remove the branding. One company will have given you a specific plan with sample work. Another will have given you a pitch deck. You do not need a scoring system to see which is which.
The types of company you will meet
Understanding the types helps you read what each is likely to be good at.
Full-service digital agencies. They sell SEO alongside design, ads and development. SEO is one department. Strengths are coordination and breadth. The risk is that SEO gets less attention than the service that earns more.
SEO specialists. Companies that do search and little else. Strengths are depth and process. They tend to be strongest on technical work and strategy.
Shopify specialists. Companies that work only with Shopify stores. They know the platform's quirks, including how collections, tags and product URLs interact, and how themes and apps affect speed.
Software companies with services. They sell a tool and offer a managed layer on top. Strengths are good measurement. The risk is that the managed work is lighter than the software, and the service is shaped around the tool.
Done-for-you content services. Newer companies that write and publish pages directly on your site at volume. Strengths are output and speed. The risk is quality, so judge them on sample pages.
None of these is better in general. Which fits depends on your gap. For the menu of what each type typically offers, see Shopify SEO services.
What to ask each company for
Send each company a short, identical request. Identical matters because you want to compare like with like.
Ask for three things in writing. First, a one-page plan for your store, naming the first ten pages they would work on and the reason for each. Second, a sample of finished work, either on your store or a past client's, with the live URL so you can read it. Third, a description of the monthly deliverables with numbers and types.
Give them a deadline. A week is reasonable. How a company handles a deadline in the sales process is how it will handle one in delivery.
Then read the three documents as a shopper would. Is the sample useful? Does it answer real questions? Is it specific to the product, or does it read like it could have been about anything? Companies that rely on templates reveal themselves quickly on a sample.
If a company will not give you the live URL of any work, ask why. Sometimes there are good reasons, such as client confidentiality. In that case, ask for a redacted version or a reference call.
To keep your questions consistent, use the list on the page 15 questions to ask a Shopify SEO expert. Pick the five most relevant to your case.
How to read a sample page
A sample page is the best evidence you will get. It shows skill, honesty and fit in one read. Here is how to judge it.
Does the first paragraph answer the main question? A buyer on a collection page wants to know what the range is, who it suits and how to choose. If the opening is warm-up text about the importance of quality, the writer is padding.
Is it specific? Real product details, real materials, real sizes, real use cases. Specifics are expensive to produce, and they are what Google and AI assistants can quote.
Is it accurate? Check facts against your products. A sample that gets details wrong is a warning, since the same process will do it at volume on your live site.
Does it sound like you? Voice is hard to fake. If the sample reads like every other store, the company will give you generic content.
Does it link to other pages? Good pages connect to related collections, products and articles. This internal linking is a large part of how SEO works on Shopify, and we cover it in Shopify SEO guide.
Would you publish it? The simplest test. If you would not put it on your store with your name on it, nothing else about the company matters.
Size and fit
A company can be excellent and still wrong for your store. Fit is about scale and attention.
Ask about their typical client. A company whose clients are large stores with big teams may treat a small store as a low priority. A company that serves small stores may lack the depth for a catalog of thousands of products. Neither is bad. Look for a company whose typical client looks like you.
Ask about their capacity. How many clients does each person handle? A high number means thin attention. A low number means higher prices, and you should expect that.
Ask about turnover. A company where account managers change every few months will keep relearning your store. A short question about how long the team has been together gives you the answer.
Ask about their stance on small budgets. Some companies take on small clients and quietly do the minimum. Others set a floor and decline anything below it. Honest floors are better than quiet neglect.
If you are small and wondering how much to expect, read Shopify SEO for small stores. If you are weighing a team against one person, read consultant versus agency.
What to make of reviews and ratings
Reviews help, but only a little, and they need careful reading.
Review sites for service companies are often influenced by the companies themselves. Companies ask happy clients to post, and rarely ask unhappy ones. A high rating tells you the company is good at asking for reviews. It does not tell you the work is good.
Read the content of reviews, not the stars. Useful ones name what was delivered and what changed. Useless ones say great team, highly recommend. Look for details such as particular pages, particular improvements and how problems were handled.
Treat awards and lists with caution. Many are paid or based on submitted entries.
Reference calls are better than reviews. Ask for two clients whose stores resemble yours, and ask them three questions. What was delivered in the first 90 days? How did the company handle something that went wrong? Would they hire again? People are surprisingly candid when asked directly.
Finally, check the company's own work in public. If it claims to be good at content, read its content. If it claims to be good at search, see whether it appears for its own subject. Public work is evidence that cannot be curated.
Making the decision
Once you have samples, plans and answers from two or three companies, the decision is usually clearer than you expect.
Rank each company on four things only. Quality of the sample. Specificity of the plan. Clarity of what will be shipped and measured. And how comfortable you felt asking hard questions. Price comes last, because it only means something once you know what it buys.
Then check the contract, whatever the company is. Look for clear deliverables, reasonable notice, content ownership and no long lock-in before you have seen results. Our guide to what to put in a Shopify SEO contract lists the clauses that matter.
Start with a short term if you can. A three-month start gives you evidence at low risk. If the company will not offer one, ask why. Confidence in the work normally shows up as flexibility on terms.
If you cannot decide between two, run the paid test described in our page on hiring a Shopify SEO expert. Give both the same small task and compare. It costs little and it resolves most close calls.
And remember that the right company for you now may not be the right one in a year. Revisit the choice when your store changes.
A fair scoring sheet for two or three companies
When two companies both look good, a simple sheet stops the decision from turning on who was most charming. Keep it to five lines and score each from one to five.
Sample quality. Would you publish it? Is it accurate and specific?
Plan specificity. Did it name pages from your store and give reasons, or describe a method?
Shipping clarity. Can you list what will be live in 90 days, with counts?
Measurement honesty. Did they promise outcomes or describe how they will show you the truth in Google Search Console?
Ease of hard questions. How did they respond when you pushed? Calm and specific, or defensive and vague?
Add the scores and look at the spread. A company that scores five on the sample and two on measurement is telling you something about how it works. Do not average away the weak spot. Ask about it directly and see what they say.
Put price beside the total only after you have scored. Divide the monthly fee by the number of useful things promised and you have a cost per thing shipped, which is the number worth comparing. One company may cost twice as much per month and half as much per page.
Share the sheet with a partner or a friend who knows the store. A second pair of eyes catches the tendency to favor whoever called back fastest.
How RunOctopus handles this
If the comparison above leaves you wanting a company that ships pages rather than plans, here is what RunOctopus does.
RunOctopus is a done-for-you service. Its AI, Ollie, researches your business, then writes and publishes pages directly on your own website. A team plans, writes, reviews and publishes alongside Ollie. It works with Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce and Wix. You install nothing, approve nothing, upload nothing and schedule nothing, and pages go live on their own.
The first week brings 8 long-form articles, 6 pages and a custom interactive tool built for your niche. After that it is 175+ pieces of content a month, written, published and linked. You also get reports on where ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini name your business. The promise is more visibility on Google and in AI answers within 90 days, measured against the 90 days before you joined, or every dollar back.
For scale, an agency doing this work charges about $3,209 a month (2026 average, 439 providers) and publishes 4 to 12 pieces. You can see what Ollie would do for your store before you decide anything. Paste your address into the free site read. Ollie reads the site and shows the plan. No account, no call.