The short version
To set up a blog on Shopify, go to Content > Blog posts, add a blog under Manage blogs, then click Add blog post; every post stays hidden until you publish it or set a date.
Before you publish, check the post's search listing, where a title over 70 characters or a description over 320 characters might get cut off in search results, and settle its URL handle.
Comments start disabled, and Shopify lets you allow them only after you've published at least one blog post.
Layout lives in the theme editor's blog and blog post templates, and every theme includes default ones; Shopify also uses “blog templates” for four writing outlines: a gift guide, a roundup, a how-to and an interview.
Your store is running and you want to publish guides, product stories or news alongside it. Shopify already has a blog built in, so the work is mostly choosing settings in the right order: the blog, the first post, its search listing, publishing, the menu, comments and, last, the layout.
How Shopify's Built-In Blog Is Organized
Key takeaway
Shopify's Help Center puts it plainly: your online store comes with a built-in blogging engine. You manage it in your Shopify admin under Content > Blog posts, not under Online Store. In the Shopify app, the same list is in the menu under Content > Blog posts.
The blog has four levels, and knowing which setting lives on which level saves you hunting through forms later.
Where each setting lives
| Level | What it is | What you set there |
|---|---|---|
| Blog | A container for posts. A store can run more than one, and starts with a default blog named News. | Title, comment mode, Theme template and search engine listing. Shopify also makes an RSS feed for each blog. |
| Blog post | One article inside a blog. | Title, content, excerpt, featured image, author, tags, visibility, Theme template and the post's own search engine listing. |
| Tag | A label on a post. | Groups posts by subject inside a blog; a theme can show one tag's posts at /blogs/<blog>/tagged/<tag>. |
| Theme template | The layout your theme applies to a blog page or a post. | Sections and settings, changed in the theme editor; the blog or post only picks which template to use. |
- Content
- Blog posts
Five Choices to Make Before Your First Post
Key takeaway
Each choice turns on one question about your store. Find the row you are unsure about; the rest of the guide shows where each setting sits.
Find your row
| Decision | Your options | What it changes | Where to start |
|---|---|---|---|
| One blog or several | One blog with tags, or a separate blog per topic | Comment mode and RSS feed are set per blog; a template and a search listing can be set on the blog and on each post; tags group posts inside one blog | One blog with tags, unless two topics need a different comment mode or blog template |
| Comment mode | Disabled, allowed pending moderation, or allowed and published automatically | Whether you review each comment before visitors see it | Leave comments disabled until your first post is live, then choose |
| Author | You, a staff member with admin access, or a guest added as staff | Whose name appears on the post; guests need a staff account first | Set up guest writers as staff before their first post |
| Who drafts the text | You, or Sidekick drafting a title and content from your prompt | Who writes the first version; you answer for every published claim either way | A Sidekick first draft is fine; check every fact before you publish |
| Layout | The theme's default blog and blog post templates, or a custom template | A blog's template applies to all of its posts, and each post also has its own Theme template field; only your live theme's templates are offered | Default templates first; a custom one when a group of posts needs its own layout |
The Setup Order, Step by Step
Key takeaway
Three rules from Shopify's help pages set the order. A new post is hidden by default and stays off your online store until you publish it. You need at least one published post before you can allow comments on a blog, and Shopify's templates page says blog post templates become available only when you have published blogs.
One more step is easy to miss: Shopify treats adding the blog to your main menu as a separate step after you create it. Tick off the steps below as you go; the sections after the checklist show each screen.
Set up your Shopify blog, in this orderNine steps from an empty blog to a published, linked post. Steps 2 to 8 happen in your Shopify admin; step 9 happens in the theme editor.
Set up your Shopify blog, in this order
Nine steps from an empty blog to a published, linked post. Steps 2 to 8 happen in your Shopify admin; step 9 happens in the theme editor.
Decide whether tags inside one blog are enough, or whether a topic needs its own blog with its own comment mode, template and feed.
Before you tick this off
- Listed the topics you plan to write about
- Decided which topics share one blog and become tags
- Know which blog the first post goes into
In Content > Blog posts, click Manage blogs, then Add blog, give it a title and save it with comments left disabled.
Before you tick this off
- Title is 255 characters or fewer
- Comments left disabled for now
- Template left on the default unless you already have a custom one
Click Add blog post and fill in the title, content, excerpt, featured image, author and tags; the post stays hidden until you publish it.
Before you tick this off
- Title entered, since the post can't be saved without one
- Excerpt written, or you accept the part of the post that shows instead
- Featured image saved as a JPEG, as Shopify advises
- Author is you or a staff member with admin access
If Sidekick drafted the title or content, read every claim against what you know is true before it goes live.
Before you tick this off
- Every product detail and fact checked
- Prompt and output in the same language
Open the post's search engine listing and set its title, description and URL handle before you publish.
Before you tick this off
- Title 70 characters or fewer
- Description 320 characters or fewer
- Handle reads the way you want the address to stay
Select Visible to publish immediately, or set a publishing date after checking the time zone in your Store defaults.
Before you tick this off
- Visibility set to Visible, or a date chosen
- Store defaults time zone confirmed in your General settings
In Content > Menus, add a menu item that links to the blog so visitors can find it.
Before you tick this off
- Menu item links to the blog
- Menu saved and checked on your online store
With a post published, open the blog under Manage blogs and choose disabled, pending moderation or automatically published comments.
Before you tick this off
- At least one post is published
- Comment mode chosen and saved
- You know where Manage comments is
In the theme editor, adjust the default blog and blog post templates, or create a custom one for a group of posts.
Before you tick this off
- Blog page layout checked in the editor preview
- Post layout shows or hides author and date the way you want
- Any custom template selected in the blog's or the post's Theme template field
How to Add a Blog in Shopify
Key takeaway
Your store already has a blog called News, which you can rename under Manage blogs, so you only need this step for a second blog. The steps follow Shopify's adding-a-blog page:
- From your Shopify admin, go to Content > Blog posts.
- Click Manage blogs, then Add blog.
- Give the blog a title of up to 255 characters, then select how you want to manage comments.
- Optional: if you've created a custom template for blogs, select it.
- Click Save.
- Content
- Blog posts
- Manage blogs
If you select a custom template here, all of the posts in the blog use it; each post also has its own Theme template field. The same form carries the blog's search engine listing, which the SEO section below covers. Leave comments disabled for now: Shopify lets you allow them only after you've published at least one blog post.
Shopify's own Learn With Shopify channel walks through the setup in a January 2026 video. The chapter “Setting up your Shopify blog” starts at 3:49 and “Creating your first post” at 7:28; the earnings figures in its monetization chapter are the presenter's, and nothing in this guide relies on them.
Writing Your First Blog Post
Key takeaway
Start from Add blog post on the Content > Blog posts page. Shopify's guide to working with blog posts notes that blog posts are hidden by default, so you can fill in the form at your own pace without anything appearing on your store.
- Content
- Blog posts
The fields of a blog post
| Field | Rule or limit | What to put there |
|---|---|---|
| Title | Up to 255 characters; a post can't be saved without one | The headline readers see |
| Content | Rich text editor with formatting, images, links, tables and video; hard limit of 64 KB | The post itself |
| Excerpt | Optional; without one, part of the post shows instead, stripped of images, formatting and links | A short summary, if your theme shows excerpts on the blog page |
| Image | Optional; displays on the blog landing page | The post's featured image; Shopify advises JPEG |
| Author | Store owner or a staff member with admin access | The person whose name should appear on the post |
| Blog | Pick an existing blog, or create a new one in the drop-down | The blog this post belongs to |
| Tags | Up to 255 characters per tag; your store's search finds them | Topic labels that group posts |
| Visibility | Hidden by default; Visible publishes the post immediately, or set a date | Leave Hidden until the post and its search listing are ready |
| Theme template | Lists templates from your live theme only | Default blog post, unless you built another post template |
For long posts, the limit that matters is size: the content field uses Shopify's rich text editor, which has a hard limit of 64 KB for the content entered into it. The same limit applies to pages.
Who can be named as the author
The Author drop-down offers only the store owner or a staff member with admin access; staff with POS access only and collaborators don't appear in it. Shopify says guest authors and external contributors need to be added as staff to show up, and its note lists the Blog posts and pages and Home permissions to check for them.
What size should the featured image be?
Key takeaway
The Image field sets the picture that displays on the blog landing page. How large it shows and how it is cropped depends on your theme, and the help pages we read do not state a size (the full list of pages is in the box under what the blog doesn't do).
What Shopify does say is about the file. It suggests the JPEG file type for blog post images, and its page on theme images says Shopify automatically determines the best file format to use when it delivers your images to visitors.
Drafting a Post With Sidekick
Key takeaway
Sidekick, Shopify's built-in AI assistant, can generate a blog post from details you give it. On the Add blog post page, click the Generate text icon in the title or content field, describe the post you want, and Sidekick drafts the title and content for you to edit.
- Content
- Blog posts
Shopify gives three practical rules. The more details you include, the more relevant the result, and you can ask for a tone and style. Write the prompt in the language you want the output in. The feature works in all the languages Shopify supports.
A draft is still your post once you publish it. Shopify's page on generating blog posts warns about exactly that:
You are responsible for the accuracy of all of the content that you publish to your store, even when you use automatic text generation to create it.
So read every product detail, price and claim in a generated draft before you set it to Visible. Where AI-written text tends to go wrong, from a generic voice to invented product details, is covered in our guide to Shopify's AI tools.
SEO Settings to Check Before You Publish
Key takeaway
The blog and the post each carry a Search engine listing with a title, a description and a URL handle. Shopify's length guidance differs between the two, and the post description gets twice the room of the blog's:
Search engine listing: blog vs post
| Setting | On a blog | On a blog post |
|---|---|---|
| Title length before it might get cut off in search results | 70 characters | 70 characters |
| Description length before it might get cut off | 160 characters | 320 characters |
| URL handle | No spaces; use dashes between words | Edited in the post's own search engine listing |
| Changing the handle later | Shopify says Create a URL redirect is pre-selected, but it appeared unchecked in our development store, so tick it before you save | Same as the blog: check the redirect box before you save |
- Content
- Blog posts
Set the handle while the post is still hidden. If you change it later, Shopify's help pages say the Create a URL redirect option is pre-selected, but when we changed the handle of a blog and of a hidden post in our development store on October 21, 2026, the box appeared unchecked, so make sure it's ticked before you save. Fixing the handle up front means links you share on day one never depend on that redirect.
- Content
- Blog posts
- Manage blogs
How much to write per post, and how the blog fits your store's wider search work, are covered in our Shopify SEO checklist's section on product copy, pages and the blog.
Publishing a Post and Adding the Blog to Your Menu
Key takeaway
Publishing has two parts that are easy to treat as one: making the post visible, and giving visitors a way to reach the blog. A visible post on a blog nobody can navigate to gets found only through search and shared links.
Publish now or set a date
Key takeaway
To publish straight away, select Visible in the post's Visibility section. To publish later, click the calendar icon in the same section and set a date and time. Shopify's publishing page says you can also backdate a post.
- Content
- Blog posts
Scheduled posts publish on your store's clock. Shopify's future-publishing page, which covers blog posts as well as products, asks you to verify the time zone in the Store defaults section of your General settings; its note is worded for products. The exact clicks are in our answer on scheduling a Shopify blog post.
To change several posts at once, select them in the Content > Blog posts list and click Set as visible or Set as hidden.
Add the blog to your navigation
After you create your blog, you can add it to your main navigation menu. Menus live under Content > Menus, and Shopify's menu guide lists blog posts among the things a menu item can link to, alongside products, collections, pages and policies.
- Content
- Menus
Open your main menu, click Add menu item, give the item a label such as “Blog”, link it to your blog and save the menu. Then load your store to confirm the link appears where you expect.
Your blog's RSS feed
Shopify automatically produces an RSS feed for every blog you create, so readers can subscribe and hear about new posts. The feed address is your blog page's URL with .atom added to the end. FeedBurner is closed to new and existing blogs that weren't already integrated with it, and Shopify notes that Google has stopped supporting the service.
Should You Turn On Blog Comments?
Key takeaway
Comments are a setting of the blog, not of each post, so every post in one blog follows the same rule. You choose the mode on the blog's own form under Manage blogs, the same form shown in the Add blog screenshot above.
- Content
- Blog posts
- Manage blogs
Shopify names three modes on its managing-comments page:
The three comment modes
| Mode (Shopify's wording) | What happens to a comment | Your work | Fits a blog where… |
|---|---|---|---|
| Comments are disabled | Visitors can't leave one | None | nobody will check comments; also every new blog's starting setting |
| Comments are allowed, pending moderation | It displays only after you review it | Approve or delete each one; mark as spam on desktop | you can check comments regularly but want nothing public unseen |
| Comments are allowed, and are automatically published | It displays without waiting for you | Remove what you don't want after it appears | you watch the blog closely and want discussion to run on its own |
Moderating comments and spam
Key takeaway
All comments are handled from Manage comments on the Content > Blog posts page. You can also review and manage the comments of one post in the Comments section of that post's details page.
- Content
- Blog posts
- Manage comments
Every comment carries one of three statuses: Approved, Not approved or Spam. A comment marked as spam, automatically or by you, has the Spam status.
The actions are Approve, Mark as spam, Unmark as spam and Delete. Deleting is final: Shopify says deleted comments can't be recovered, so, on desktop, mark a doubtful comment as spam instead if you might want it back.
You don't catch spam alone. Shopify checks all blog comments for signs of spam and flags them, and flagged comments don't display on your blog; you see them only in your admin.
Replying is the gap. The comments help page we read lists no reply action, and its tip suggests installing a blog app from the Shopify App Store if you want to reply to blog comments.
Blog Templates: Theme Layouts vs Post Outlines
Key takeaway
Search for “Shopify blog templates” and you meet both meanings. If you want to change how your blog looks, you want the theme templates below. If you want help deciding what to write, you want Shopify's starter outlines after them.
Blog and blog post templates in the theme editor
Key takeaway
Shopify's theme templates page says all themes have a default template for blogs and blog posts. By default, a blog page holds a Blog posts section and a post holds a Blog post section, though the exact sections depend on your theme. To make your own template:
- From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store.
- Find the theme that you want to edit, and then click Edit theme.
- Click the Home page drop-down menu, then Blogs > Create template for a blog page, or Blog posts > Create template for a post layout.
- Change the template's sections and settings, then save it.
- Online Store
- Edit theme
A blog template sets how all the posts display on a blog page, such as whether their featured images show. A blog post template sets the layout of single posts or groups of posts, for example whether the author and date appear. The frames here come from Horizon, Shopify's flagship theme; your theme's sections may differ.
- Online Store
- Edit theme
To use a custom template, select it in the Theme template field of the blog or the post. The options shown come only from your current live theme, and Shopify notes that blog post templates become available only once you have published blogs in your store.
Behind the editor, a theme renders the blog page from a blog template and each post from an article template. Shopify's developer documentation for the blog template covers that code layer. A layout the theme's sections can't produce means editing those files, which is developer work rather than a setting.
Shopify's four starter post outlines
Key takeaway
If you're new to blogging, Shopify's blog templates page gives four starting shapes for a first post:
- Gift guide blog posts
- Roundup blog posts
- How-to blog posts
- Interview blog posts
Its main advice comes before any outline: have a plan for your post before you start writing.
What the Built-In Blog Doesn't Do
Key takeaway
The built-in blog covers publishing well. These are the edges you meet first:
- Tags, not nested categories. Shopify suggests tags to organize posts into categories or by subject; the help pages we read describe no separate category feature. A theme can show one tag's posts at an address of the form
/blogs/<blog>/tagged/<tag>. - No replies to comments. The comments help page we read lists no reply action and points to blog apps in the Shopify App Store.
- No featured-image size. The pages we read give none, so your theme decides how the image shows.
- An external blog stays external. If you already blog on WordPress, Tumblr or Blogger, you can add a link to that blog in your online store navigation instead of moving it.
Whether those limits make Shopify's blog a weaker home than WordPress for a content-heavy business is a judgement we make in our look at Shopify's blog and URL limitations.
If you ever need your posts outside Shopify, see whether you can export blog posts, pages and menus.
The Bottom Line
Key takeaway
Setting up a Shopify blog takes settings in the right order, and the order is what trips people up: a hidden post, a blog missing from the menu, or a comment setting that can't be allowed yet.
Frequently Asked Questions
Front-end developer specializing in Shopify since 2017. Experienced in building custom Liquid themes, optimizing storefront performance, and integrating third-party apps. Directs the editorial process behind Ecom Store Pro: sets its topics and the rules every AI-written page must pass before publication.
This page was written by AI. Separate AI agents that did not write it check its figures and claims against official sources and test its links and interactive tools. A human editor sets the site's editorial direction, topics and rules and checks that pages are complete and display correctly, but does not check their facts or edit their text. Details may change — always confirm critical data at shopify.com.
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