Shopify Integration

Connect your Shopify store once, and every article SEOLadders writes goes straight into your store's blog: the title, the full article, the cover image, a short summary and the text Google shows in search. Shopify asks you to create a small app for this. It sounds technical, but it is a few clicks and nothing to code. Setup takes about 10 minutes.

Video walkthroughComing soon

Before you start

Make sure you have these two things:

  • You are the store owner, or a staff member allowed to develop apps. Creating the app needs that permission.
  • Your store has a blog. Every Shopify store comes with one called News. To check, open Content → Blog posts in your Shopify admin and click Manage blogs.

1. Copy your store's address

  1. Open your Shopify admin.
  2. Copy the address from your browser bar. It looks like admin.shopify.com/store/my-store. SEOLadders reads your store from it.

Or use the myshopify.com address

Settings → Domains shows an address ending in .myshopify.com, which works too. Your own domain does not, but articles still appear on it.

2. Create the SEOLadders app

This app is how Shopify lets SEOLadders add blog posts to your store. It can read and write your store's content (blogs, blog posts and pages) and read your products, so buying guides can name and link the products you sell, with their real prices. It never changes your products and has no access to orders, customers or payments.

  1. Go to dev.shopify.com (the Dev Dashboard) and log in with the same Shopify account that owns your store. Not shopify.dev, which is Shopify's documentation.
  2. Click + on Create an app.
  3. Fill in the form:
    • App name: SEOLadders, so you always know what it is for.
    • App URL: https://www.seoladders.com/dashboard/cms-integration
    • Embed app in Shopify admin: untick it.
    • Scopes: type read_content,write_content,write_products
    • Leave everything else as it is.
  4. Click Create app. Shopify saves it as version seoladders-1, marked Active.

Shopify asks you to create a Partner organization?

If the Dev Dashboard says your account is not linked to any organization, click Create a new Partner organization, fill in your business details and come back. It is free.

3. Install the app on your store

  1. In the app's Overview, find the Installs box and click its button (Install app, or Test app on a development store).
  2. Pick your store, then click Install on the permissions screen.
  3. Refresh the Overview. Install events now shows 1.

Don't skip this step

An app that is created but not installed is the most common reason the connection fails. Shopify then says it did not accept the Client ID and Client secret, even though they are right.

4. Copy the Client ID and Client secret

  1. Still on the app's Overview, find the Credentials box.
  2. Copy the Client ID and the Client secret with the copy buttons beside them.

Keep the Client secret private

Treat it like a password, and never share it in a screenshot. If it ever leaks, rotate it in the app's Settings and paste the new one into SEOLadders.

5. Connect Shopify in SEOLadders

  1. In SEOLadders, open Content → CMS Integration and click the Shopify card.
  2. Paste your Store address (step 1), the Client ID and the Client secret (step 4).
  3. Click Load blogs. Your blog (usually News) is picked for you. If your store has more than one, choose the one articles should go to.
  4. Leave Publish live immediately switched on if you want articles to appear on your store straight away. Switch it off to have them arrive as hidden drafts you publish yourself.
  5. Click Test connection. It should show your store's name.
  6. Click Save configuration. You are connected.

Auto-publish is on by default

Once Shopify is connected, every finished article from your content calendar is sent to your store automatically. If you would rather check each article first, turn on review mode in Content → Auto Blog.

6. Publish your first article

  1. In SEOLadders, open Content → Content History and click any finished article.
  2. Click Publish to Shopify at the top right.
  3. In Shopify, open Content → Blog posts. The article is there, marked Visible, with its cover image, excerpt and search engine listing filled in.
  4. On your store, it lives at yourstore.com/blogs/news/article-name (with your blog's name in place of news).

Your Shopify theme decides how articles look, so they match the rest of your store with nothing to design.

Cover image too big?

Many themes show the cover image across the full width of the page. To make it smaller, open Online Store → Themes → Customize, pick Blog posts in the page menu at the top, select the blog post section and set its image height to Small or Medium. Then click Save.

What gets sent to Shopify

Shopify fieldWhat goes in it
TitleThe article title
ContentThe full article: headings, text, images, tables and links
ImageThe article's cover image
ExcerptA short summary of the article, shown on your blog page
AuthorYour store's name
Search engine listingThe page title and meta description Google shows
URL handleThe end of the article's web address

Publishing the same article again updates the same Shopify post, so you never get duplicates and the web address stays the same.

If something goes wrong

  • “Use your store's myshopify.com address”: you pasted your own domain. Use the .myshopify.com address from step 1.
  • “Shopify did not accept the Client ID and Client secret”: the app is most likely not installed on the store yet (step 3). Otherwise, copy both again from the app's Credentials box.
  • “Shopify would not let this app connect to the store”: the app was created from a different Shopify account than the one that owns the store. Create it again while logged in as the store owner.
  • “The Shopify app is missing a permission”: add the read_content, write_content and write_products scopes in a new version of the app (Versions → Create version), then approve the update on your store.
  • Connected before we asked for products? Publishing keeps working. To let buying guides name your products and the audit fix product SEO, add write_products to the app in a new version, approve it on your store, then click Save in SEOLadders again: it reads your products and says how many it found.
  • “This store has no blog yet”: in Shopify, open Content → Blog posts → Manage blogs, add a blog, then click Load blogs again.
  • The article is in Shopify but not on your store: Publish live immediately is off, so it arrived hidden. Open it in Shopify and set it to visible, or switch the option on and publish again.

Still stuck? Contact us from your avatar menu → Support and we will set it up with you. Not on Shopify? See all destinations.