Search "SEO checklist for online store" and you'll get a list with 50 items on it. Submit your sitemap. Fix your alt text. Get hreflang right. Build a reporting dashboard. All technically correct, all treated as equally urgent, which is the actual problem. A store with ten sales a month doesn't need hreflang. It needs its five best-selling product pages to stop looking like every other store selling the same product.
So here are the 10 that matter, in the order to do them.
1. Get indexed at all
Set up Google Search Console, verify your domain, submit your sitemap. None of this counts as optimization yet, it's just making sure Google can see your store at all. Open the "Pages" report and check whether your actual products show up as indexed. I've seen stores spend months on content while half their catalog was quietly excluded because of a robots.txt line nobody remembered setting.
2. Write product descriptions nobody else has
The one store owners skip most, and it costs the most. If your description is the manufacturer's copy-pasted text, or close to what three competitors are also running, Google has no reason to rank you over them. Rewrite the 10 to 20 products that drive most of your revenue first.
3. Fix your title tags and meta descriptions
Title tag under 60 characters, includes the product name and one specific detail (material, size, use case). Meta description under 160 characters, written like you're telling a friend why this product is worth their time, not stuffing in every keyword you can think of. Both show up in the search result before anyone's clicked through, so they're doing sales work before the sale.
4. Make the site fast on mobile
Run your homepage and a product page through PageSpeed Insights. Most stores lose here on image size, not code. Multi-megabyte PNGs as hero images are an easy, high-payoff fix.
5. Use headers correctly
One H1 per page with your main product term in it. H2s for actual sections, not bold text pretending to be a heading. This is how search engines and screen readers both understand what the page is about.
6. Link your own pages together
If you write a buying guide, link to the products it mentions. If a product page exists, link to it from its collection page and from any blog post that references it. Free, and most stores never do it.
7. Set up your Google Business Profile
Even if you're running this out of a spare room with no storefront, claim the listing if you offer local pickup or delivery in a specific area. It takes about five minutes to set up and shows up for searches you'd otherwise never rank for, like "gift shop near me."
8. Get a handful of real reviews
Reviews improve rankings and conversion at the same time. You don't need hundreds. Twenty genuine reviews on your best sellers beat zero reviews everywhere.
9. Fix broken links and old URLs
Check Search Console's coverage report for 404s. A few broken internal links are normal wear, but redirect the ones with existing backlinks or that Google still tries to crawl.
10. Add structured data and real alt text
Schema markup on products and reviews lets search results show star ratings and prices right in the listing, which is a real click-through boost. Alt text on product images should describe what's actually in the photo, "blue ceramic mug on wood table" beats "mug1.jpg" or ten repeated keywords. Neither will save a store with weak fundamentals, but both are cheap once the rest is done.
What to skip, for now
International hreflang tags, if you sell to one country. Advanced schema for FAQ rich results, if you don't have real FAQs yet. A dedicated SEO reporting dashboard, if you're the only one who looks at your traffic. Not wrong to want eventually, just wrong to prioritize over a rewritten product description that's currently identical to five competitors' pages.
Fix what blocks you from being found, then fix what makes you worth finding, then optimize the edges. Do these ten in order and you'll see movement faster than the 50-item version ever gets you.