Five-Minute Shopify Tune-Ups That Help AI Find Your Farm
Last time we talked about making your farm the kind of site Claude wants to recommend. This one is the housekeeping that clears the path so it can actually get there. None of these need a developer, and most take about five minutes between farm chores.
Compress your photos. Gorgeous bloom photos are usually the heaviest thing on a flower farm's site, and a slow page is one an assistant, and a buyer, may give up on. A free app like TinyIMG or Crush.pics shrinks every image without dulling the color. Run it once, then let it handle new uploads.
Write real alt text. Alt text is the short description attached to each image. It's how AI and image search understand what they're looking at, and it's a quiet accessibility win besides. Skip "IMG_4471." Write "coral charm peony stems in a galvanized bucket." You'll find the field right under each image in Shopify.
Tidy your URLs. A readable web address helps both buyers and assistants understand a page before they open it. /products/coral-charm-peony-stems tells a clear story. /products/12847 tells none. You can edit the handle in the SEO section of any product or page.
Fill in your page titles and descriptions. Every Shopify product and page has an SEO title and a meta description field, and most growers leave them on autopilot. Write them like the answer to a search: "Coral Charm peonies, available for May pickup in [town]." A sentence each is plenty, and it gives the assistant a clean summary to pull from.
Trim the apps you don't use. Every app you install adds weight, and a pile of half-used ones can slow your site to the point that crawlers miss your content. Open your apps list and remove anything you haven't touched in months. Your load time, and your bottom line, will thank you.
One for later: llms.txt. This is a newer file that points AI toward your most important pages, a bit like a sitemap written for assistants. It's still early and not a must-have, but if you like staying a step ahead, it's a tidy weekend project. File it under nice-to-have, not now.
The short version:
- Compress images with a free app.
- Add descriptive alt text to your photos.
- Rewrite messy URLs into readable handles.
- Fill in SEO titles and descriptions, answer first.
- Delete apps you no longer use.
- Add an llms.txt when you have a spare hour.
Think of these as a quarterly tune-up, the same way you prune and refresh between selling seasons. Small, regular upkeep keeps your site quick, legible, and ready for whoever, or whatever, comes looking.
Want this handled for you, season after season? It's part of the ongoing seasonal support I offer alongside every Jill & Co Shopify site.