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app.athenahq.ai/content/product-optimization

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Purpose

Use Catalog Optimization to review your Shopify products, generate drafts for titles, descriptions and FAQs, and publish selected fields after review. Access requires the feature to be enabled for your account, an eligible plan, and a connected Shopify store.

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What’s on the page

The Catalog Optimization header includes Refresh from Shopify and Shopify connection. Select a product to review or generate its draft. Storefront setup banner Appears when your Shopify theme needs configuration to display FAQs properly. It prompts you to “Finish storefront setup” and shows live detection status, with links to your Shopify theme editor to add the FAQ block and enable FAQ schema. It may also show a permission request or a “Could not verify storefront setup” retry state. Once Shopify detects both extensions are active, this banner disappears. Search and product count bar Contains a Search Shopify products box to filter your catalog by product title. To the right, it displays a live count of how many products are currently loaded and whether more are available to load. Product optimization table The main grid displaying your Shopify products and their current optimization status. While loading, this table shows skeleton placeholder rows.
  • (Checkbox): Used to select the product for bulk actions (such as bulk optimization). The header checkbox selects or deselects all currently loaded rows (up to the 25-product cap).
  • Product: Displays the product image, title, vendor, and status (e.g., Active, Draft). Includes a small external link icon to view or manage the product directly on Shopify.
  • Optimized titles: Shows the product’s current SEO title text and a character count against the Shopify limit. Displays “Missing” if not set.
  • Meta description: Shows the product’s current SEO meta description text and character count. Displays “Missing” if not set.
  • FAQs: Shows the count of FAQ entries attached to the product (with a “JSON-LD” note), or “Missing” if none exist.
  • Optimization: A status badge showing “Draft ready” (green) if you have an unpublished draft, “Complete” (neutral) if all fields are filled, or a warning like “3 fields missing” if fields are empty.
Product optimization editor overlay When you click on a product row, this full-screen panel slides over the page. It contains:
  • A header with the product title, a View live page or View in Shopify link, and a Publish to Shopify button.
  • Edit and Preview tabs to switch between the editing form and a preview of how the product will look.
  • A version history button (e.g., “1 version”) to browse and restore previously saved or published drafts.
  • A Generate draft (or Regenerate draft) button to have AI create content for the product.
  • Editing sections for “Search metadata” (Optimized title, Meta description), “Product description”, and “Product FAQs”. Each field has a Publish checkbox next to it to select which fields will actually be sent to Shopify.

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What you can do here

  • Search Shopify products: Type in the search box to filter the table by product title. This searches against your live Shopify store and debounces your typing so it refetches automatically.
  • Select products: Check the boxes next to individual products, or use the header checkbox to Select all loaded products (this selects up to 25 loaded products at once). Clicking directly on the checkbox cell toggles selection without opening the editor.
  • Bulk optimize: After selecting products, click Optimize selected in the floating command bar. This opens a dialog to confirm generating drafts for all selected rows. Click Generate drafts to proceed or Cancel to abort.
  • Refresh from Shopify: Click Refresh from Shopify in the header (or in the mobile ⋯ menu) to fetch the latest product data directly from your store. This resets any unsaved draft overrides currently shown in the table.
  • Manage Shopify connection: Click Shopify connection in the header to open a drawer where you can connect, reconnect, or disconnect your Shopify store and set your default blog.
  • Finish storefront setup: In the setup banner, click Storefront setup actions to open a menu. From here, click Add FAQ block (or Add FAQ to [template]) or Enable FAQ schema to open the Shopify theme editor in a new tab. If requested, you can also click Approve theme access to navigate to the Shopify reauthorize route (requires integration management permission).
  • Load more products: Scroll to the bottom of the table and click Load more products to fetch the next page of your catalog.
  • Clear selection: Click Clear in the floating command bar or press Esc to deselect all rows.
Inside the product optimization editor:
  • Close editor: Click Close editor (the X icon in the top left) or press Esc to close the editor and return to the table.
  • Generate / Regenerate draft: Click the Generate draft button to have AI write an optimized title, description, and FAQs. This overwrites the editable fields with the result. This charges credits to your balance (unless your plan is content-credit exempt).
  • Edit fields: Type directly into the Optimized title, Meta description, Product description HTML, FAQ question, or FAQ answer inputs. Edits autosave automatically after a short delay or when you click away.
  • Add or remove FAQs: Click Add FAQ to insert a new blank question/answer pair (up to 20), or click the Remove FAQ trash can icon next to an FAQ to delete it entirely.
  • Preview changes: Switch to the Preview tab to see a “Search preview” of your metadata and a “Product-page preview” of the HTML description and FAQs.
  • View version history: Click the version history trigger (e.g., “3 versions”) to open a popover of past drafts. Click Version N to view that historical version read-only in the preview tab. Click Restore as new draft to copy its contents back into your active draft, or click Current draft (the back arrow) to return to your work in progress.
  • Publish to Shopify: Check the Publish box next to any field you want to send to your live store, then click Publish to Shopify. If the button is disabled, hover over it to see why (e.g., “Select at least one completed field to publish.”). Follow the View live page link in the success toast to confirm the changes on your storefront.

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Data shown

  • Shopify products: Pulled directly from your live Shopify Admin API product catalog, fetched specifically for your connected website.
  • Optimization drafts and versions: Athena stores your saved drafts, AI-generated content, and version history for each product.
  • Theme setup status: Athena detects whether the required FAQ block and schema embed are currently active on your live Shopify theme.

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Common workflows

Optimize a single product and publish it
  1. Open the Products tab and locate a product you want to improve.
  2. Click the row to open the product optimization editor.
  3. Click Generate draft to have AI produce a title, description, and FAQs (spends credits unless exempt).
  4. Review and edit the generated fields; your edits autosave as a new draft version.
  5. Check the Publish checkbox next to each field you want to include, then click Publish to Shopify.
  6. Follow the View live page link in the success toast to confirm the change on the storefront.
Bulk-optimize selected products
  1. Select several product checkboxes in the table (up to 25).
  2. Click Optimize selected in the floating command bar.
  3. Confirm Generate drafts in the dialog.
  4. Drafts appear inline in the table as “Draft ready”; open each product individually to review and publish.
Finish Shopify storefront FAQ setup
  1. Notice the “Finish storefront setup” banner above the table.
  2. Open the Storefront setup actions menu.
  3. Click Add FAQ block (or the specific missing template) and Enable FAQ schema to open the Shopify theme editor in new tabs and save the changes there.
  4. Return to Athena; the banner clears automatically once Shopify detects both extensions are active (polled periodically).

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Empty, loading, and error states

  • Empty: If no products exist, you will see “No Shopify products found” with a shopping bag icon. If your search yields no results, it says “No products match this search”. Inside the editor, if a product has no FAQs, you will see “No FAQs yet”.
  • Loading: While fetching the product list, the table displays skeleton placeholder rows. When opening a historical version, the preview tab shows “Loading saved version…”.
  • Error: If the product list fails to load, a “Shopify products are unavailable” screen appears with the server-provided reason and a Try again button. If refreshing fails, a toast pops up saying “Could not refresh Shopify products” with a description. If the storefront theme check fails, the banner shows “Could not verify storefront setup” with a Retry verification button.
  • Linked from: You can reach this page from the primary Content navigation menu by clicking Catalog Optimization. (Users are typically routed here only via direct navigation or an enabled nav item. If the feature is turned off on your plan, it redirects to the Action Center).

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Common support questions

Why can’t I select more than 25 products for bulk optimization? Bulk actions are currently capped at 25 products at a time to ensure reliable generation. If you use the “Select all loaded products” checkbox in the header, it will only select the first 25 loaded rows and notify you with a message. Why is the “Publish to Shopify” button disabled? You must check the “Publish” box next to at least one completed field before you can publish. Hover over the disabled button to see the specific reason - it may be that no fields are selected, a field is empty, or text exceeds Shopify’s character limits. Am I charged credits when I click Generate draft? Yes, generating an optimization draft costs credits, unless your organization is on a plan that includes unlimited content generation (like the Enterprise or Agency plan). The credit cost badge will appear on the button to show exactly how much will be deducted. I just connected Shopify, but the setup banner says “Finish storefront setup”. What does this mean? For AI-generated FAQs to display correctly and provide SEO benefits via schema markup, you need to add the AthenaHQ Commerce FAQ block to your Shopify theme. The banner provides direct links to your theme editor to complete this one-time step. Why does the “Approve theme access” button look disabled? You need integration management permissions within your organization to approve Shopify access. If you don’t have this permission, the button will be greyed out, and hovering over it will explain that an admin needs to perform this action.