E-commerce SEO
Turn category and product pages into your highest-margin acquisition channel — without paying for every click.
- per genuine search intent, not per filter
- 1 pageper genuine search intent, not per filter
- schema for price, availability and review stars
- Productschema for price, availability and review stars
- the reporting metric, not sessions
- Revenuethe reporting metric, not sessions
- pages are where the money terms live
- Categorypages are where the money terms live
The problem
What this solves
Online stores generate URLs faster than Google can crawl them. Faceted navigation multiplies every category into thousands of near-duplicate pages, product pages inherit manufacturer descriptions that appear on fifty other sites, and the category pages that should rank for your money terms carry no content at all. Meanwhile your paid budget rises every quarter to cover the organic revenue you never built.
You are probably here because
- Faceted navigation has generated tens of thousands of crawlable URLs
- Your product descriptions came from the supplier and appear on other sites
- Category pages rank for nothing and contain no content
- Paid budget rises every quarter to cover organic you never built
- New products take weeks to get indexed
What's included
Everything this service covers
Scope is fixed and written down before we start, so there is no argument later about what was and was not included.
Demand-mapped category architecture
Your catalogue matched against how people actually search, which usually justifies categories you do not currently have and retires ones nobody looks for.
Faceted navigation strategy
Which filter combinations get indexable optimised pages, which get canonicalised, and which get blocked outright before they consume the crawl budget your money pages need.
Product page optimisation
Unique copy replacing supplier text, complete Product schema, and a template that applies both across the whole catalogue rather than product by product.
Out-of-stock and discontinued handling
Rules that preserve earned equity instead of deleting it — keep with alternatives, or redirect to the closest equivalent or parent category, decided per case.
Collection page content
Copy placed below the grid or in expandable sections so buyers see products immediately while crawlers still get the context they need.
Internal linking between tiers
Categories, products and supporting content linked deliberately, so authority flows towards the pages with margin rather than pooling on the blog.
Crawl budget reclamation
Parameter and filter URLs brought under control so Googlebot spends its time on pages that can convert, and new products index in days.
Revenue-attributed reporting
Organic sessions tied to orders and contribution margin per category, so effort goes to the products actually worth ranking.
Process
How the engagement runs
- 01
Demand mapping
Match your catalogue against how people actually search — the results usually justify categories you do not yet have.
- 02
Crawl control
Reclaim crawl budget from parameter and filter URLs so Googlebot spends its time on pages that can convert.
- 03
Page-level build
Templates are optimised once and applied across thousands of URLs — copy blocks, schema, headings, internal links and image handling.
- 04
Measure against revenue
Reporting is tied to orders and margin. Sessions are a diagnostic, not the goal.
Outcomes
What success looks like
- Category pages ranking for the terms you currently buy on Google Ads
- Rich results on product listings — price, availability and review stars
- Lower blended customer acquisition cost as organic revenue share grows
Honest fit
Is this the right service for you?
I would rather tell you no now than take a retainer for work that was never going to help.
This is a good fit if
- You have a real catalogue and real search demand behind it
- Paid search is carrying more of your revenue than you want
- Your category pages are thin or missing entirely
- You can implement changes at template level
This is the wrong service if
- You have fewer than a hundred products and no category depth
- Your margins cannot support a multi-month programme
- You need this quarter’s revenue — that is a paid search problem
- You are unwilling to write unique product copy
Definitions
The terms on this page, explained
Plain definitions of the concepts this service works with — so you can evaluate the work rather than take the vocabulary on trust.
- Faceted navigation
- The filter system on a category page. Each combination can generate a crawlable URL, which is how a 3,000-product catalogue becomes 400,000 URLs Google has to sort through.
- Category page
- The page listing products in a group. Usually the highest commercial-intent page on an online store, and usually the emptiest.
- Product schema
- Structured data describing price, availability and reviews, which makes a listing eligible for rich results in the search results.
- Crawl budget
- How much crawling Google will do on your site. On e-commerce it is the constraint that decides whether new products get indexed this week or next month.
- Canonicalisation
- Telling Google which version of near-duplicate pages is the one that should rank, so filter and sort variants do not compete with the page you actually want.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Should filtered category URLs be indexed?
Some should, most should not. Filters with genuine search demand — a colour or size people actually search for — deserve indexable, optimised pages. Everything else should be canonicalised or blocked before it consumes your crawl budget.
What happens to SEO when a product is discontinued?
Never delete it into a 404 if it has links or rankings. Depending on the case I keep the page live with alternatives, or redirect it to the closest equivalent product or its parent category, so the accumulated equity is retained.
Which platforms do you work with?
Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce and custom headless builds. Platform changes the implementation details, not the strategy.
Can SEO content hurt my conversion rate?
Badly placed content can. I put category copy below the product grid or in expandable sections so buyers see products immediately while crawlers still get the context they need.
Related services
Free audit
Want E-commerce SEO done properly?
Send me your domain and I'll reply with the three issues costing you the most organic traffic right now — and whether this service is the right one for them.
- The three issues costing you the most organic traffic
- Whether those are quick fixes or structural problems
- An honest view on whether SEO is worth it for you
You work with me directly — no account managers, no offshore handoff, no junior taking over after the sales call.
Or watch the free SEO training firstRequest your free audit
Two business days, written by me, no call required.