eCommerce SEO That Drives Sales, Not Just Rankings
Most SEO advice was written for blogs, information sites, and service businesses. eCommerce is different: thousands of product pages, category structures, Google Shopping feeds, and algorithm updates that treat your store differently than a content site.
Why eCommerce SEO Is Different
A blog post ranks by being the best answer to a question. A product page ranks by being the most relevant, trustworthy result for a purchase search, across hundreds or thousands of similar pages, without looking like duplicate content.
The problems are different too:
- Faceted navigation creating thousands of thin indexed pages
- Out-of-stock products losing rankings
- Product titles written for the internal catalog, not how customers search
- Category pages with no content
- Best sellers buried four clicks deep
These aren't beginner problems. They're structural, and fixing them takes platform knowledge.
How I Wor
Every project starts with a technical audit. Most stores have problems nobody has caught: pages indexed that shouldn't be, titles that don't match how customers search, feed data that contradicts the product pages it pulls from.
Next is keyword research focused on purchase intent. Not the highest-volume terms: the ones the right customer searches when they're ready to buy or compare.
Then on-page optimization, category structure, and feed quality, in order of impact. Organic and Shopping often pull from the same product data, so cleaning the feed tends to improve both.
Progress is tracked in Search Console and Semrush. Reports cover what changed and why, so you can see the work turning into sales.
eCommerce SEO Includes
Grab a coffee and scroll through.
Product Page Optimization
Titles, meta descriptions, H1s, body copy, and schema markup structured the way search engines read them. For B2B, that means SKUs, part numbers, specs, and the technical terms customers actually search.
Category And Navigation Structure
Category structure decides what you can rank for. I audit hierarchies, faceted navigation, and internal links so search engines can find your best pages and customers can reach products in as few clicks as possible.
Technical SEO
Crawlability, indexation, site speed, variant duplicates, pagination, canonicals, and XML sitemaps. On a large catalog these compound fast. I audit at scale with Screaming Frog, Semrush, Ahrefs, and Sitebulb.
Google Shopping And Feed Optimization
Merchant Center is where a lot of eCommerce SEO shows up in revenue. Titles, descriptions, and attributes in the feed decide where products show up in Shopping. I've managed feeds for B2B businesses and know what gets products approved, flagged, and ranked.
Keyword Research For Niche Products
Finding how customers describe your products, not how your catalog does. For industrial and technical businesses, that means bridging part names and plain-language searches. Example: metric hydraulic threads are also searched as "M-threads." If your pages only say "metric," you're missing those buyers.
Customer Experience
Every touchpoint of the customer from first click, follow up, to retention. How each one builds trust or erodes and what to fix.
GEO and AI search visibility
Buyers are researching products in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity. Those tools pull from the same signals SEO is built on:
- Product, review, and pricing schema so AI tools can read and cite your pages
- FAQ and comparison content, the format they pull from most
- Clear, accurate product and category descriptions with no filler
- Authority signals: links, citations, and content depth
GEO isn't a replacement for SEO. It's an extension. Stores already doing SEO right are positioned for AI search: they just need to know where to tune.
Platforms I Work With
Shopify · WooCommerce · BigCommerce · Magento · Unilog · DDI eCommerce Pro · Nexternal
I've also worked with Akeneo for PIM and Epicor, DDI Inform, and Microsoft Dynamics on the ERP side. These matters when your product data lives in an ERP and needs to feed your eCommerce site cleanly.
What Bad eCommerce SEO Is Costing You
Rankings That Don't Lead To Sales
Generic keywords bring browsers, not buyers. Looks good in a report, does nothing for revenue.
Tap to see the fixThe Fix
Keywords get chosen by purchase intent, so the traffic that comes in is ready to buy.
Competitors Outranking You On Your Own Products
Another site shows up above you for products you carry. That's not a content volume problem. It's structure and optimization.
Tap to see the fixThe Fix
Product pages get titles, specs, and schema built the way search engines read them, so you win the searches for what you sell.
Catalog Growth That Breaks Your SEO
New products bring duplicate content, thin pages, and crawl issues. The catalog grows, rankings don't.
Tap to see the fixThe Fix
Canonicals, variants, and site structure get set up to scale, so new products add rankings instead of problems.
Merchant Center Problems You Can't Diagnose
Feed errors, disapprovals, and underperforming Shopping campaigns because the product data feeding them is incomplete or wrong.
Tap to see the fixThe Fix
The product feed gets cleaned and matched to your pages, so products get approved and show up in Shopping.
Category Pages Google Ignores
No content, no optimization, no reason to rank. Those pages are where the highest-volume buying searches land.
Tap to see the fixThe Fix
Category pages get useful content and clear structure, so they rank for the searches that bring in the most buyers.
SEO Work With Nothing To Show For It
Posts get written, meta descriptions get updated, rankings don't move. Usually the fundamentals were never fixed.
Tap to see the fixThe Fix
Every project starts with a technical audit, so the fixes that actually move rankings come first.
Right Fit / Not Right Fit
Works well for:
- Established stores with an existing catalog
- B2B, industrial, and specialty retail where buyers search with specific intent
- Sites where traffic has plateaued or dropped and the product isn't the problem
- Teams planning a platform migration who want SEO built in before launch, not repaired after
Not the right fit for:
- Businesses still building their catalog or validating what they sell
- Sites that need paid traffic first because there's no organic volume to measure yet
- Trend-driven catalogs where products don't stay up long enough for organic to compound
Does Any Of This Sound Familiar
- Organic traffic has been flat or declining and you don't know why
- You rank for keywords but the traffic doesn't convert
- A competitor with a weaker product line outranks you
- Shopping campaigns underperform and you suspect the feed
- You added products and crawl coverage got worse
- You hired someone for SEO and can't tell if anything changed
Contact Cathy Gray
I work best where marketing, eCommerce, and operations overlap.
Whether you're hiring or need help with your business, I'd like to hear about it.
Area of Marketing Expertise
Results
Atlanta Rubber & Hydraulics Inherited a BigCommerce site with broken extensions, payment processing issues, and underperforming revenue. Rebuilt the site architecture, rebuilt the product catalog with proper SEO structure, and managed Google Ads alongside organic. The site grew to 8,000+ keywords and contributed to nearly $500K in online sales in my final year. The company was acquired in 2023.
Tipco Technologies Keyword rankings grew from 7,500 to 10,000 during my time there.
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