I’ve seen plenty of websites organized the way the warehouse thinks.
By vendor. By product line. By the prefix on the SKU. It makes sense from the inside. That’s how purchasing orders it, how the shelves are labeled, and how everyone at the company talks about it.
The buyer doesn’t know any of that. They know what they need and what they call it.
Your Buyers Don’t Know Your Vendor List
A buyer looking for a part doesn’t search for the brand you happen to stock or the product line name from the vendor’s price sheet. They search for the thing.
Sometimes they don’t even use the same word you do. One buyer says drywall screws. Another says sheetrock screws. Same box on the same shelf.
If your category and product names only match how the company talks, buyers who say it differently either don’t find you or assume you don’t carry it. I covered regional naming in How to Increase Average Order Value Without Chasing More Traffic. This post is about building the pages around it.
Company-First Vs Customer-First
Here’s what the difference looks like with work gloves.
The company-first way. The navigation follows the warehouse:
- Safety > Hand Protection > Cut-Resistant Gloves > Model CR-410
- Safety > Hand Protection > Coated Gloves > Model NT-220
A buyer has to already know whether they need cut-resistant or coated, and what you call it.
The customer-first way. The same gloves, with pages built around what buyers type into Google:
- /gloves-for-handling-sheet-metal/ (targeting “cut resistant gloves for sheet metal”)
- /work-gloves-for-fencing/ (targeting “best gloves for barbed wire fencing”)
- /mechanic-gloves-with-grip/ (targeting “gloves for mechanics oily hands”)
Same products. The buyer starts from their job, not your catalog.
Find The Words Buyers Actually Use
You don’t have to guess. Search Console already shows you.
In Search Console, go to Performance, then Search results, and look at Queries. Those are the words people typed before they found you.
What to look for:
- Queries that don’t match your page names. Buyers are using a word you aren’t.
- Queries with impressions but few clicks. You showed up, but your page title didn’t look like what they were looking for.
- The same product searched several ways. Each one is a name worth using somewhere on the page.
Your counter, sales team, and site search terms are good sources too. They show the words buyers use once they’re already talking to you.
Name Categories For Each Vertical
This is where I spent a lot of time.
Different customer verticals call the same products different things. A farmer, a contractor, and a plant maintenance tech can search for the same part three different ways.
So I renamed product categories to hit the terms each vertical actually searched. Same products, different names depending on who was looking.
Keep The Old Names Too
Renaming doesn’t mean erasing.
- Use the other names on the page. Put them in the description, not just the title.
- Add synonyms to site search. If a buyer types the other word, search should still find it.
- Redirect old URLs. If a category name changes its URL, set up a 301 redirect so old links and rankings carry over.
- Keep vendor and part numbers on the page. Some buyers do search by brand or part number. Give them that too.
Where To Start
- Pull your top 50 Search Console queries and compare them to your category names.
- Ask your counter or sales team what buyers call your top 10 products.
- Rename one category to match how buyers search, and watch it for a month.
- Add the other names to descriptions and site search.
Naming is one stop on the way to finding you. For the rest of the buyer’s journey, see 5 Stops on the B2B Buyer’s Journey (And Where You Lose Them).
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