SEO and e-commerce: Optimising Product Pages and Category Pages

Introduction

In e-commerce, search engine optimisation (SEO) plays a crucial role in the success of any online business. Without a solid SEO strategy, an online shop will struggle to stand out in search engine results, reducing the visibility of its products. It is therefore imperative to give product pages and category pages special attention in order to improve their positioning and, ultimately, increase the conversion rate.

Optimising product pages for SEO

To optimise your product pages effectively for SEO, you need to focus on several essential elements. Title tags and meta descriptions are key elements to optimise. It is also essential to include relevant keywords in the product description and to regularly use these keywords in your URLs, image alt tags and headers. However, while integrating keywords, it is important to ensure that the content remains relevant and useful for your site's visitors.

Optimising category pages for SEO

Similarly, optimising category pages is just as crucial for SEO. You can take a different approach to optimising these pages by focusing on aspects such as usability, navigation, URL structure, title tags, meta descriptions and text content. These pages are often the first impression customers have of your business, so it's essential that they are properly optimised and user-friendly.

Conclusion

SEO optimisation for product and category pages in e-commerce may seem like a daunting task, but it's vitally important to the success of your online shop. With patience, time and effort, you can improve your site's visibility in search engine results and give your business a solid foundation for future growth.

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Understanding search intent: the fuel for relevant optimisation

While Google's algorithms are constantly evolving, one constant remains: search intent is paramount.
Before even reviewing its product or category pages, an e-tailer should map each stage of the buyer's journey
- exploratory navigation (women's hiking boots) to the ultra-transactional request (salomon x ultra 3 gtx 37 1/3 prices).
This mapping is based on the four macro-intentions (informational, navigational, transactional, commercial) described in Google's Search Intent Framework.
Here's a concrete example: Decathlon positions buying guides (How do I choose my trail poles?) on informational queries,
while its Bâtons de trail category pages are aimed at sales and its product sheets at transactions.
The alignment between page type and intent, coupled with appropriate wording, is often the No. 1 cause of SEO take-off or failure in online retail.

Information architecture: the backbone of SEO success

Once the intention has been clarified, the information architecture is used to irrigate the entire site in terms of semantic relevance and PageRank.
Successful e-tailers adopt the three-click rule: any product must be accessible in less than three interactions.
from the home page. Amazon has been pushing this principle since 2001 with its department > sub-department > category page > product sheet tree structure.
Even today, this pattern remains effective for SEO because it limits the depth of URLs (a factor taken into account by Google in the "Crawl Budget").
and effectively distributes internal authority.

More subtle, semi-automated meshing using trendy product blocks or dynamic lists (e.g. Best Sellers, New Products).
amplifies the freshness and circulation of juices. ManoMano, for example, pulls up its top sales every week to massively connect
and without any editorial effort, hundreds of orphan products; this increases the frequency of crawls by 18 % (internal data shared during the
Paris SEO Meetup 2023).

On-Page optimisation of Category Pages

Primary and secondary keywords

On a category page, the raw density of keywords nhas not been a lever since Panda (2011).
On the other hand, the integration of thematic co-occurrences remains decisive.
The tool NLP from Google (Cloud Natural Language API) often reveals lexical fields
which we naturally have to inject: trail material + anti-slip + low shank + gore-tex.
The e-retailer Alltricks, by working with these entities, has gained +41 % of traffic on its Trail Shoes category between 2021 and 2022.

Short, descriptive URL structure

/men/mens-trail-running-shoes/ is explicit, feature-oriented and can be reused in internationalisation (/en/mens-trail-running-shoes/).
Avoid parameter chains ?id=129&sort=4 - they dilute relevance and undermine social sharing.
The URL rewriting carried out by IKEA in 2019 (deletion of doubled /en/ and ?storeId=... parameter) has reduced by 30 %
the rate of pages excluded from the crawl.

Top of Category content: between editorial and conversion

The dilemma is well known: too much text is detrimental to the user experience; too little and Google struggles to understand.
The modular approach resolves this conflict:
1) a succinct intro block above the listing (less than 120 words) to reassure you about the expertise;
2) an accordion or Tips tab under the fold (400 - 600 words) which targets related informational queries.
At La Redoute, this content has been enriched with more clearly defined "See" anchors <h2> dynamic,
reducing pogo-sticking by 12 %.

Pagination, facets and filters

Filters (size, colour, brand) generate thousands of combinations; without control, they create duplicate content.
The cleanest technical option is to index only those facets that are in high demand (volume > 500 searches/month).
and noindex,follow the others. Zalando applies this principle: the red facet is indexable,
but rust isn't. Combined with infinite scroll pagination based on the History API,
This system preserves the discoverability and performance of Core Web Vitals.

On-Page Optimisation of Product Pages

Conversion-oriented Title and Meta Description tags

The Title tag must combine "keyword", "model" and "value proposition".
Example : Salomon X Ultra 3 GTX Women 37 ⅓ - Waterproof hiking boots | 24h delivery.
A/B tests carried out by Cdiscount on 5,000 listings showed that the mention of 24-hour delivery in Title increased CTR by 4.7 %.
The meta description, while not ranking, has a strong influence on SERP traffic:
Take advantage of -15 % with the code TREK15. Free 30-day returns.
According to Sistrix, a CTR on mobile moving from 3 % to 4 % is often equivalent to an organic "gain" of two positions in visibility.

Schema.org structured data Product

Enhanced snippets (price, stock, reviews) boost the SERP surface area occupied.
However, Google requires consistency between schema.org/Offer and visible content.
In 2022, Adidas suffered a manual penalty Misleading notices for displaying 5★
on a product that no longer had any reviews. Moral: feed the tagging directly via the internal API (stock, promotional price, average rating).
and schedule an automated weekly test with the Search Console Product Improvement Report.

Unique content and product storytelling

Copying the supplier description is no longer acceptable.
Backlinko has shown that content produced > 300 words generates 53 % more backlinks than content < 100 words.
French retailer Snowleader is writing a Freeride vibe paragraph telling the story of each brand.
Result: +28 % SEO impressions on their Jones Snowboards listings in winter 2022.
Storytelling also nurtures emotional connection, which is indirectly correlated with the conversion rate (CRO).

Optimised images and videos

WebP images, named salomon-x-ultra-3-gtx-femme.jpg, compressed to 100 Kb,
and accompanied by attributes alt improve visibility in Google Images.
A study by SEMrush (2023) indicates that 38 % of e-commerce searches now go through the images tab.
The addition of a 360° video hosted on a CDN and pre-loaded (<link rel="preload">)
has boosted the average time on page by 15 % at Fnac.
More importantly: the tag loading="lazy" on off-screen images speeds up Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) - Core Web Vitals criterion.

Dynamic stock, prices and availability

A product that is out of stock for months ruins the budget crawl.
The giants (Amazon, eBay) redirect visitors in 302 to the category or to an equivalent.
For smaller sites, automatically recommend three alternatives (similar high-margin products)
reduces the SEO bounce rate. The in-stock monitor Python script coupled with the GSC API
allows noindex records without stock in order to preserve the quality of the indexing.

Internal linking and PageRank liquefaction

Internal linking refers to the art of distributing PageRank, but also semantic context.
Suggesting a They also bought module was primarily aimed at achieving an average shopping basket;
it proves to be an SEO asset. According to a Botify analysis of 25 fashion sites,
product sheets with at least five contextualised internal links generate 20 % additional organic sessions.
To go further, mini-clusters (category buying guide products)
in the form of a contextualised footer reinforce the thematic density.
The result at Boulanger: the Coffee Bean Machines cluster has doubled its traffic YoY 2022/2023 ;
Google detects a topic authority in the middle of a roll-out.

Technical SEO and Core Web Vitals: performance as a lever

In e-commerce, every 100 ms of delay is detrimental to conversion (Akamai data).
Since Web Vitals, Google has combined speed and ranking.
Lighthouse recommends an LCP < 2.5 s and a CLS < 0.1.
Performance Gates (#perfmatters) at Vercel has demonstrated that the transition from a monolithic Magento stack
to a React + Next.js + headless API front end reduces Time to First Byte by 800 ms.
As far as images are concerned, the Cloudinary server-less solution automatically adapts the resolution to the viewport.
More technical, the Critical CSS inlined and the pre-rendering (server-side rendering) improve First Input Delay (FID) - soon Interaction to Next Paint (INP).

Internationalisation and multilingual e-commerce

The tags hreflang avoid cannibalisation between versions, but when used incorrectly they fragment authority.
In 2017, ASOS deployed hreflang="en-us" on pages... UK!
Result: 17 % fall in US traffic until corrected.
Today, we recommend the x-default approach for the country selection page
and folder-based URLs (/es/, /de/...) to simplify GSC reporting.
Note that the content must remain culturally localised (EU vs US size, currencies, promotions).
Shopify Markets automates certain rules, but requires an audit of the slugs to preserve the "URL history" signal.

Duplicate content: product variants, reviews and filters

Variants (colour, size) pose the headache of one URL per variant or one parameter?
Google recommends a canonical to the parent version + JS management of image/stock changes.
Fnac uses this approach: the IPhone 14 128GB parent sheet is canonical;
the purple version remains available for optional indexing if the volume of searches justifies it (iphone 14 violet).
As for User Generated Content (UGC) - customer reviews - this can trigger near-duplicate if it is repeated elsewhere.
The trick is to index the first 150 characters and then load the rest using Ajax, so that the main content retains its originality.

CRO and SEO: combining informational and transactional intent

SEO attracts, Conversion Rate Optimisation transforms.
Baymard studies show that adding reassurance icons (secure payment, free returns)
directly into the <above-the-fold> increases the basket rate from 2 to 4 %.
Likewise, dynamic call-to-actions (Add to basket - Only 2 copies available!).
can improve user responsiveness, but care must be taken not to interfere with Web Vitals signals.
Shopify's Shop-Pay loads a third-party script; if deferred incorrectly, it will degrade your FID.

Case studies: Zalando, ManoMano, IKEA

Zalando The 2020 overhaul of its categories introduced an 80-word text + an Influencers Choice carousel.
With the Searchmetrics A/B test, Zalando observed +7 average positions on 1,400 dress keywords in 3 months.
The determining factor: the combination of internal mesh > lookbook guide > products.

ManoMano The faceted Help with Choice 2021 project used machine learning to identify
highly sought-after filters (power, blade length for chainsaws).
Only 12 % facets are indexable;
yet this core captures 78 % of organic category traffic.
The operation prevents the index from exploding: 240,000 superfluous URLs deleted.

IKEA Migrating from Ikea.com/en to Ikea.fr required 620 301 redirect rules.
An Anchor Text Recovery plan recovered 5 million historical internal backlinks.
The gain: +25 % of top 3 keywords in France, coupled with less exo-netlinking (marketing budget preserved).

Measure, test, iterate: essential tools and KPIs

E-commerce SEO is a marathon.
Priority KPIs: organic sessions, click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, average basket, revenue, as well as crawler metrics:
ratio of indexed pages to total pages, average URL depth, orphan pages.
The tools :
- Google Data Studio (Looker) for cross-referencing Search Console + GA4 ;
- Botify, OnCrawl or Screaming Frog for mesh auditing;
- Hotjar or Contentsquare to overlay the heatmap on SEO elements (e.g. position of editorial content on categories).
The test and learn principle is applied: we isolate 10 % category URLs and change the length of the text,
we observe for three weeks, we extend if the signal is positive.
At Leroy Merlin, this method boosted SEO sales by 6 % in six months (SEO by Night 2022 conference).

Anticipating the future: visual search, generative AI, voice commerce

Google Lens and Pinterest Lens are starting a revolution: images are becoming queries.
Optimise the attribute alt is no longer enough; we need to enrich EXIF and distribute dedicated image sitemaps.
At the same time, generative AI (Bard, ChatGPT) is summarising product sheets in the SERPs.
This means that the content must be structured, concise and differentiating if it is to remain clickable.
Finally, voice commerce is making headway via Alexa and Google Assistant.
Voice queries are long and conversational;
mark out the FAQ products (schema.org/FAQPage) maximises the chance of being read by the assistant.
According to OC&C Strategy, voice shopping will account for 40 G$ in 2024 in the USA; a non-visible e-retailer will not participate.

Express operational checklist

- Keyword research = mapping by intention (info / comm / transac).
- Silo structure + short URLs + depth < 3.
- Category: text 80 - 120 words top, 400 - 600 under-the-fold; prioritised facets and SEO-friendly pagination.
- Product: Title ≤ 60 car, USP + keyword; up-to-date Product Schema; unique 300-word content; WebP + images alt 360° lazy-load video.
- Internal link: mini-clusters + at least 5 contextual links per page.
- Core Web Vitals LCP < 2.5 s, CLS < 0.1, INP < 200 ms.
- International : hreflang folder-based + x-default.
- Duplicate: canonical to parent, noindex weak filters.
- Measurement: Search Console + Analytics + crawler, A/B test 10 %.
- Future: image search, voice, AI; adapting content and mark-up.

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