Online stores have a particular SEO shape. Category pages compete for broad, high-volume searches such as “linen bedding” or “custom pins”. Product pages compete for specific ones like a model name, a size or a material. AI shopping answers draw on both. Getting each page type right, and keeping the catalogue clean, is most of the work.
Category (collection) pages
Category pages are often the most valuable pages in a store, and the most neglected.
- Match a real search. Each important category should target a search people actually make. Name it the way customers do.
- Add helpful copy. A short introduction above the products and a longer buying guide or FAQ below can explain differences, materials, sizing and use cases. Write for the shopper first.
- Link to subcategories and related categories with descriptive anchor text.
- Show enough products for the page to be useful, with pagination that search engines can follow.
Product pages
- Unique descriptions. Manufacturer descriptions copied across many stores add nothing. Explain what the product is, who it is for and what makes it different, then the specifications.
- Clear titles. Include the product type and the key attribute people search for: brand, model, size, material.
- Answer pre-purchase questions on the page: dimensions, care, compatibility, delivery and returns.
- Images with descriptive alt text, compressed and sized properly.
- Reviews from real customers, displayed on the page.
Product structured data
Product markup with name, image, price, currency, availability and, where you collect them on your own site, reviews and ratings, helps search engines show rich product information and makes your catalogue easier for AI shopping tools to understand. Keep it in sync with the page; a price in the markup that differs from the page is a common error. In our Brooklinen case study, Product and FAQ schema were part of the work that made the brand easier for AI tools to verify and cite.
Filters, sorting and variants
Faceted navigation (filters for colour, size, price) can create thousands of near-identical URLs. Decide which filter combinations deserve their own indexable page, usually those that match real searches such as “black linen duvet cover”, and keep the rest out of the index with canonical tags, noindex or by not generating crawlable links to them.
For variants (sizes, colours), most stores are best served by one product page with selectable options, unless a variant is searched for distinctly enough to deserve its own page.
Out-of-stock and discontinued products
- Temporarily out of stock: keep the page live, show availability and offer alternatives or back-in-stock alerts.
- Permanently discontinued: redirect to the closest replacement or the parent category if there is a clear equivalent; otherwise let the page return a 404 or 410 and remove internal links to it.
Internal linking
Link from buying guides and blog posts to the categories and products they discuss, from products back to their categories, and between related products. Internal links tell search engines which pages matter most.
Speed and mobile
Product pages often carry heavy images, review widgets and apps. Check Core Web Vitals for your key templates and remove scripts you do not need. Most shoppers will see the mobile version first.
Marketplaces too
If you also sell on Amazon, your listings need their own optimization: titles, bullet points, images and backend search terms. Paid and organic work together there. See our guide to Amazon PPC structure.
Our On-Page SEO & GEO Optimization service covers product and category pages on Shopify, WordPress (WooCommerce), Wix and Squarespace, including schema and AI-search readiness. For link building to category pages, see our guest posting campaigns.
