Ecommerce category page SEO can look overwhelming from the onset. But when you get started, you’ll find out that you’re applying the same Ecommerce SEO best practices—because you’re trying to please shoppers, sell your products, and rank your category pages on Google.
This article will show you how to optimize your ecommerce category pages for search engines and still make cool sales. Now, let’s get started.
What are Ecommerce Category Pages?
Ecommerce category pages are hubs that group your products so users can easily find them. They provide a clear pathway for users to browse your site and shop products under relevant categories.
For instance, in a physical tech store, you can find a section for “home entertainment.” Under this section, you’ll find a segment for “TVs” and “streaming devices.”
This also applies to ecommerce websites. The broader “home entertainment” section is called category listing pages(CLP), while “TVs” and “streaming devices” are referred to as product listing pages(PLP).
Why Does Ecommerce Category Page SEO Matter?
Category pages help search engines understand your site architecture and crawl and index your product pages. It essentially serves both users and search engine bots.
Also, category pages help you rank for high-volume short-tail keywords like “jackets,” which can bring qualified traffic to your site.
Similarly, they act as pillar pages and distribute PageRank points to the subcategories or interlinked pages. It improves the user experience and makes it possible for users to find their desired product effortlessly.
Category pages also help your online store build topical authority and rank higher on search engines like Google.
11 Best Practices to Optimize Category Pages for SEO
Category pages are a vital part of your sales funnel, and ranking them on Google’s first page will put you in front of many ready-to-buy prospects.
Here are some SEO strategies for optimizing your category pages for search engines.
Group your Category Pages
When organizing your category pages, start from the parent category, like “computer & accessories,” before going down to the child categories, like “laptops” and “monitors.”
Doing this will help users to seamlessly navigate your online store and provide a good user experience.
If your category grouping makes it challenging to find products you sell, you’ll miss out on many sales. So, you need to use the parent-to-child format to group your category and product listings pages.
You can group your category and product listing pages in this format.
- Computer & accessories > laptops > PLP (Product Listing Page) listing
- Home entertainment > streaming devices > PLP listing
- Audio > headphones & earbuds > PLP listing
- Smart home > smart assistant > PLP listing
You can find the category and product listing pages by entering broad search terms like “smart home” in SEO tools like the Niche Empire keyword tool. And then, filter the list to find more specific terms for your pages.
Use Long-tail Keyword Categories
Do you have a specific or niche category in your catalog? Then, use long-tail keyword categories to classify them.
They don’t have as much traffic as the short-tail keywords used in your category listing pages, but they will have higher conversions because users searching for longtail queries are looking for specific types of products.
Additionally, it’s way easier to rank your long-tail category pages on Google than to compete with huge marketplaces like Amazon and Walmart, including your direct competitors.
As discussed in the previous section, you can use keyword research tools to find these transactional long-tail keywords by entering your category listing page(CLP).
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Craft Unique Category Page Content
First, your headline or H1 should answer the “what’s in it for me”(WIIFM) question and guide your reader to the featured image and body copy. To keep your readers hooked, your body copy has to be short and punchy.
It should explain how you select your products, source your materials, and deliver them.
You don’t need to write a full article here; anywhere between 100 and 200 words should be okay. If you want to expand further on a subject, you can include an internal link to blog posts or guides to help your prospects choose the right products.
You might not have the space to tackle the questions and objections of users, so you have to include them in your FAQs section below the page. Finally, add relevant CTAs to trigger the click, as the goal of your category page is to take users to the product pages. Learn how to optimize your ecommerce product descriptions.
Create Hierarchical URL Structures
Search engines like Google allocate a certain amount of resources for crawling a site, called a crawl budget. If your crawl budget gets used up, some pages won’t be indexed and will not appear on search engines (this is crucial for ecommerce websites).
That’s where the hierarchical URL structure comes in. It involves linking your category listing pages and product listing pages to your home page to enable search bots to locate and index all the pages on your site.
For example, your hierarchical URL structure for product listing pages will look like this:
Your product pages will be structured like this:
Your product pages should be 3-4 four clicks away from your home page so that search crawlers can easily find and index your pages. If your crawl depth or clicks from your page is higher (5 clicks from your homepage), you might end up with unindexed product pages, which is bad for SEO.
Include Customer Reviews and Ratings
Aside from recommendations from friends and family members, online shoppers use customer reviews and ratings to evaluate products. So, user reviews and ratings must be included in your category pages.
You could display product ratings and snippets of reviews so that users can see all the product reviews and ratings. In addition, product ratings and reviews can appear in search engine results as rich snippets.
This adds more detail to your page and makes your site stand out in search results. It could bump up your CTRs (Click Through Rate) and propel users to buy from you on the spot. You need to list quality products in your store to get good reviews. You must also resolve customer issues promptly, such as returns and delivery issues, to acquire more positive reviews.
Build Faceted Navigation
Faceted navigation is created to streamline the user experience when searching for products. They are filters like price, size, color, customer ratings, and brand that shoppers use to locate products that suit their preferences.
However, faceted navigation can cause a mix-up for search engines if you have multiple URLs for the same products. So, it’s best to block crawlers from indexing your facet navigation pages to avoid wasting your crawl budget or creating product cannibalization in search results.
You can resolve this issue using a robot txt to block search engine bots from indexing your facet URLs.
Additionally, canonical tags can merge pages with variable URLs, such as the color variants of a jacket. This will tell search engines that they are on the same product page. However, you should do this if you want only the main version of the page to be indexed by search engines.
Perform On-page SEO
Generally, the same on-page SEO rules that apply to your blog posts and landing pages also work here. The only difference is that you are working with shorter content.
Here’s a checklist to perform on-page SEO for your category pages:
- Add your primary keyword in your title tag, headers like H1, meta descriptions, URL slug, and body copy
- Weave in your keywords naturally in your content without breaking the flow of your content
- Keep your meta titles short and sweet. It should be under 60 characters, and the same goes for your meta description
- Write Alt tags for your images for accessibility and to help search bots understand your images
- Link to relevant resources and guides on your site to help users make the right purchase decision.
- Ensure your site is mobile-friendly and responsive on different screens and devices.
- Create a user-friendly and consistent design interface
- Improve your category page speed by compressing your images
Add Structured Data
Structured data or schema markup will give users a quick overview of your category page content and products. It helps to drive clicks to your ecommerce store with star ratings, item list, FAQs, and so on. You can visit a site like schema.org to find different schema codes you can input in your category pages.
Some examples of the recommended schema markup types for ecommerce sites include:
- Product schema
- ProductGroup schema
- ItemList schema
- AggregateRating schema
- Store schema
- Review schema
- BreadcrumbsList schema
Implement an Internal Linking Strategy
It’s a best practice to link all your category listing pages (parent page) to your product listing pages (child page). This will distribute PageRank authority from high-traffic category listing pages to your product pages.
It will also help users find their desired product with ease. This internal linking strategy helps to build a pyramid site structure where parent or broader categories link to child categories. It helps search engines understand your site architecture better and improve its indexability.
Also, you need to include breadcrumbs in your category pages to show users exactly where they are on your site so they can seamlessly navigate your store. Breadcrumbs also provides internal links for search bots to crawl and index your pages and save your crawl budget.
Here is what a breadcrumb looks like:
- Home > Smartphones > Android Phones > Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
- Home > Brands > Apple > MacBooks > MacBook Pro 14-inch M3
- Home > Laptops > Gaming Laptops > ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14
Suppose you’re managing a large ecommerce store; you can set up automated internal linking to save time and ensure that there are no orphan category pages (pages without any internal link pointing to them).
You also have to choose parent and child categories, and the PLP (Product Listing Page) will automatically link to the CLP (Category Listing Page). You can also manually add internal links to high-priority category pages you want to be on your homepage.
Optimize your Site Pagination
Pagination is simply the numerical page numbers that divide a huge list of products in a category on your site. For example, you must have come across blogs or category pages with numbers like “1,2,3,4,5,…<<<Pevious Next>>>.”
Pagination is built to help users browse categories and products with relative ease. And it helps search engines crawl through your site efficiently.
Here are some strategies to optimize your category page pagination:
- Ensure the navigation is fluid
- Use “href tags” to allow search bots to crawl through the page pagination
- You can use dynamic or infinite scrolling to improve UX.
There are two internal linking strategies you can apply in your pagination.
First, you can link to fewer pages to give the essential pages a high PageRank authority or distribute the links to all your products with a more balanced link equity.
Again, applying sequential linking will enable the first set of pages to have more link juices than the ones further down the pagination.
Create a Seamless UX/UI Design
If your category pages have an unusually high bounce rate, it signals search engines that your site has a poor user experience. User experience is not just about building a mobile-first site; other strategies go into it.
Follow these steps to optimize the experience of visitors to your Ecommerce category pages:
- Create a consistent design and layout throughout your site. This pertains to fonts, color scheme, CTA buttons, product organization, etc
- Ensure that your site is responsive
- Use high-quality images and video content
- Implement the best technical SEO practices to ensure your site functions optimally
- Model your top competitors that are doing well
- Your categories pages and product listing pages should be intuitive
- Fix broken links with redirects or delete the page
- Use a consistent URL structure to avoid changing URLs
- Use a content delivery network and browser caching to load your pages faster.
Read More:
- Getting Started with Walmart SEO
- SEO Tips for Etsy Sellers
- SEO for Amazon Sellers
- Top Amazon SEO Keywords to Optimize Your Store and Products
- SEO for Ecommerce Businesses
- Learn How to Do Ecommerce SEO Audit
- Best Ecommerce Platform For SEO
- Ecommerce SEO Checklists You Need to Know
- Benefits of Ecommerce SEO
- SEO for Ecommerce Category Pages
- SEO for Product Description – Optimize Your Ecommerce Product Description
- Best Themes for Shopify Store Owners
Summary: How to Optimize your Category Pages
Optimizing ecommerce category pages for SEO is not that difficult. These strategies should help you to create category pages that users and search engines understand.
Remember that category page SEO is a continuous process; you have to use tools like Google Analytics and Niche Empire to track your search rankings and conduct regular site audits to keep your site in tip-top shape.
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FAQs
- Are category pages good for SEO?
Category pages are good for SEO because they help search engines like Google discover and index your website. It also helps you to rank for high-volume short-tail keywords. Also, it improves your overall user experience, which is a search engine ranking factor.
- Do categories affect SEO?
Yes, categories significantly affect SEO. Because it helps search engines to understand your site architecture and crawl and index your pages. It also improves your customer’s experience and enables you to rank for broad and niched keywords.
- How to rank an ecommerce category page?
You can rank your ecommerce category page by doing the following:
- Naturally place keywords in your meta titles, descriptions, and headers with relevant keyword
- Include well-structured descriptive content on the page (e.g., FAQs, product summaries)
- Ensure internal linking to related categories and product listing pages
- Add breadcrumbs and filtering options for usability.
- Mobile responsiveness and technical SEO
- Add customer reviews and visually appealing content
- What is the difference between a PLP (Product Listing Page) and a category page?
Product listing pages (PLP) provide a list of your products, while a category listing page (CLP) groups your products into broad product categories. In summary, a product listing page is the parent category for your product category pages.
- What is the difference between a product page and a category page?
A product page contains essential information about a single product, such as SEO product description, pricing, and specifications. Category pages group products into broader topics or sections so shoppers can easily find any product.
