Most guides to SEO for ecommerce read like a checklist. Title tags, alt text, sitemaps. Tick, tick, tick.
None of that is wrong. But the stores we see growing organically aren't the ones that have ticked the most boxes. They're the ones that have worked out which few things matter most for their range, their platform and their customers and then done those things properly.
So rather than another A to Z, this is how we actually approach SEO for ecommerce sites when a new client comes to us, roughly in the order we'd tackle it.
Why SEO and ecommerce are a natural fit
Paid search and paid social are brilliant at switching demand on. The problem is they switch it off again just as quickly and the cost of each click rarely goes down.
Organic search works differently. A category page that ranks well today will usually still be bringing in customers next year, without you paying for every visit. Done well, SEO lowers your blended acquisition cost and makes your paid budget go further, which is why we tend to plan it alongside ecommerce PPC rather than in a separate silo.
That's the real case for SEO for ecommerce business growth. It isn't a replacement for paid media. It's the channel that keeps compounding while everything else resets each month.
Start with your categories, not your blog
When people think about keyword research, they often think about blog topics. For an online store, that's usually the wrong place to start.
The searches that make you money tend to sit at category level: "waterproof walking boots", "oak dining tables", "men's linen shirts". Someone typing those is shopping, not researching. Your category pages (or collections, if you're on Shopify) are the pages built to serve them.
Every ecommerce site SEO project we take on starts by mapping keywords to the categories that already exist, then looking for gaps:
• Which categories have clear search demand behind them? If a category has no realistic search term attached, that's fine, but it isn't an SEO priority.
• Which searches have no matching page? These are your opportunities for new collections or sub-collections.
• Where are two pages competing for the same term? Cannibalisation is one of the most common issues we see on larger catalogues.
Ahrefs and Google Search Console are the obvious sources here, but don't ignore your own data. Your site search report, customer service inbox and sales team will tell you exactly how customers describe what they want, which isn't always how your buying team names the range.
One word of caution: the biggest keyword isn't always the best opportunity. We went into this in detail for jewellery SEO, but the principle applies to almost any sector. Specific, high-intent terms where your range is genuinely strong will usually pay back faster than a broad head term you have little chance of ranking for yet.
Category pages do most of the heavy lifting
If we could only work on one page type, it would be categories. In SEO for ecommerce websites, they're the pages most likely to rank for commercial terms and they're often the most neglected.
Here's what we look for:
• A specific title tag and H1. "Boots" is not a title. "Women's Waterproof Walking Boots" is.
• A short introduction above the product grid. Two or three sentences that confirm the shopper is in the right place. Not an essay that pushes the products below the fold.
• Supporting copy further down. This is where you answer common questions, explain the differences between options and link to related categories.
• Links to relevant sub-categories. Help the shopper narrow down and help search engines understand how your range fits together.
• Enough products to justify the page. A collection with three products and a paragraph of copy looks like an SEO landing page, because it is one.
Category copy also needs revisiting. Ranges change, seasons change and copy written three years ago often describes products you no longer stock.
Product pages: useful first, optimised second
Product pages rarely rank for big terms on their own. They do pick up a lot of specific, long-tail searches though and they're where the sale actually happens.
The most common problem we find is copy lifted straight from the manufacturer. If you paste in the supplier's description, you have exactly the same words as every other stockist, so Google has no reason to prefer your page. Rewrite it in your own voice and add the details customers actually ask about, like sizing, materials, compatibility and delivery times.
Visible reviews, decent photography and clear specifications all help indirectly because they help people buy. They're also exactly the kind of information AI shopping tools lean on, which we'll come back to.
Ecommerce website SEO: the technical bits that matter most
Platforms like Shopify take care of a lot of the technical groundwork for you. That's a real advantage, but it doesn't mean there's nothing left to do. These are the areas where we most often find problems.
Faceted navigation
Filters for size, colour, price and brand are great for shoppers. Left unchecked, they can also generate thousands of near-identical URLs for search engines to crawl. Decide which filtered views genuinely deserve to be indexable pages (usually very few) and keep the rest out of the index with canonicals, noindex or robots rules.
Duplicate products and variants
Products that sit in more than one category, or variants that each get their own URL, can quietly create duplicates. Make sure canonical tags point to one preferred version and that your internal links use that version consistently.
Out of stock products
Deleting a product page the moment stock runs out throws away the rankings and links it has built up. If it's coming back, keep the page live and say so. If it's gone for good, redirect it to the closest alternative or the parent category.
Speed and Core Web Vitals
Most speed problems on online stores come from oversized images, heavy themes and a pile of third-party apps. Audit what's actually installed, remove what you don't use and test your key templates (home, category and product) in PageSpeed Insights.
Structured data
Product schema with price, availability and reviews helps search engines understand your pages and makes them eligible for richer results. Check what your theme outputs by default, because it's often incomplete and make sure the values match what's on the page.
Migrations
If you're changing platform, this is when SEO is most at risk. Redirect mapping, URL structure and content all need planning before launch, not after. It's a big part of how we approach any replatforming project.
Site architecture: get customers anywhere in a few clicks
When it comes to SEO for ecommerce site structure, the aim is simple. Every important page should be easy to reach, for shoppers and crawlers alike.
In practice, that means a navigation that reflects how customers shop rather than how your warehouse is organised. It means a shallow hierarchy, with key categories no more than a few clicks from the homepage. And it means breadcrumbs on category and product pages, so the relationship between pages is obvious.
Shopify is a good example of why this matters. Its URLs are flat (/collections/ and /products/), so the URL alone doesn't tell Google how your range is structured. Your navigation, breadcrumbs and internal links have to do that job instead. It's one of the things we spend the most time on in Shopify SEO.
Don't overlook Google Merchant Center
Merchant Center is usually filed under paid media, but an approved product feed also makes your products eligible for free listings across the Shopping tab and other Google surfaces. That's organic visibility a lot of stores leave on the table.
The same habits that help on your site help here:
• Product titles that lead with brand, product type and the attributes people search for
• Proper descriptions rather than a single line of stock text
• Clean product images without text overlays or watermarks
• Accurate prices, stock levels and GTINs that match your on-page structured data
Check the Diagnostics tab regularly too. Disapprovals and missing attributes can quietly pull products out of results without anyone noticing.
Content that earns its place
Blog content still has a role in SEO for an ecommerce site, but it needs to support your commercial pages rather than sit alongside them doing its own thing.
The content we find most useful for online stores tends to be:
• Buying guides for each major category, linking into the relevant collections
• Comparisons that help shoppers choose between options you actually sell
• Answers to the questions your customer service and sales teams hear every week
Each piece should link back to the categories it supports. That internal linking is what turns a pile of articles into genuine topical authority.
A useful rule of thumb: if customers keep asking the same question before they buy, it deserves a page, even if a keyword tool says nobody searches for it.
Links: relevance beats volume
Backlinks still matter, particularly in competitive categories. But one link from a respected publication or trade body in your sector is worth far more than a pile of low quality directory listings.
Start with the relationships you already have. Suppliers, manufacturers and brand partners often run "where to buy" or stockist pages and a polite email is usually all it takes to get listed.
Then think about what makes your brand worth writing about. A launch, a collaboration or some data only you have can all give journalists and bloggers a genuine reason to cover you. Links earned that way tend to be the ones that move the needle.
Getting ready for AI search
More and more product research now starts in tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Mode. They don't replace traditional search so much as reward the same fundamentals: clear product information, structured data, content that answers real questions and a site that's easy to crawl.
Where it differs is in how you find opportunities. Prompts aren't keywords, so it's worth looking at the questions shoppers ask AI tools about your category rather than relying on search volumes alone. We've written about how we run an AI content gap analysis for ecommerce and it's a growing part of our AI SEO work.
Measuring what matters
Rankings and traffic are useful signals, but they aren't the goal. For an online store, the numbers we care about most are:
• Revenue and conversions from organic search
• Growth in non-brand organic traffic (brand traffic mostly reflects awareness, not SEO)
• Visibility for your priority category terms
• Index coverage and crawl issues in Search Console
If organic visitors arrive and leave straight away, that's often a UX problem rather than an SEO one, so look at both together. Our guide to ecommerce user experience issues that cost you sales covers the usual culprits.
Pulling it together: an SEO strategy for ecommerce website growth
If there's one thing to take away, it's that SEO for ecommerce website success comes from doing a handful of things properly rather than everything superficially.
In order, we'd usually:
1. Map keywords to categories and fix any cannibalisation
2. Improve the category pages that already have demand behind them
3. Fix the technical issues that waste crawl budget or split authority
4. Tighten navigation and internal linking
5. Build supporting content and links around your priority categories
6. Measure against revenue, not just rankings
Then repeat. Ranges change, competitors change and search itself is changing faster than it has in years, so the best results come from treating SEO as ongoing work rather than a one-off project.
If you'd like a second pair of eyes on your store, our ecommerce SEO team would be happy to take a look.
Book a free discovery call and we'll be in touch!
