Most ecommerce SEO strategies I see are built backwards. Shop owners obsess over rankings for keywords that never ring the till, celebrating page one positions on terms their customers don’t type. An ecommerce seo audit usually exposes this within the first hour.
This piece covers the tactics that bridge the gap between traffic and turnover, drawn from running campaigns for Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce shops across a dozen verticals.
Match Buyer Keywords to the Right Page Type
Category pages should target broad commercial terms like ‘buy noise cancelling headphones’. Product pages should target specific long-tail queries like ‘Sony WH-1000XM5 free delivery’. Mixing these up is one of the most common ranking problems I see on ecommerce sites, and the Shopify SEO checklist flags it for good reason: when the same keyword sits on both page types, Google picks one and suppresses the other.
The split matters because the intent behind each search is different. Someone searching ‘buy noise cancelling headphones’ is still comparing options, so they need a category page showing your full range with filters for price, brand, and features. Someone searching ‘Sony WH-1000XM5 free delivery’ has already decided what they want. They need a product page with a buy button, not a category full of options they’ve already ruled out. That second search converts at a far higher rate because the purchase decision is already made.
Most shops never deliberately assign these roles. I’ve audited BigCommerce and Shopify shops where the category page was optimised for a specific model name and the product page still had the manufacturer’s default description. The fix takes an afternoon: map broad commercial modifiers (buy, best, cheap, UK) to your collection pages and specific model queries to product pages, then check the split is correct using Google Search Console’s Performance report filtered by page.
Build Buyer Advice Content That Brings Wallets
Blog posts about ‘the history of headphones’ bring readers, not buyers. The content that belongs in a revenue-focused ecommerce SEO strategy guide targets people already shopping. Four formats consistently deliver on that.
[Your product] vs [competing product] posts capture people who’ve narrowed their shortlist to two. Someone searching ‘Dyson V15 vs Shark Stratos’ is buying a cordless vacuum this week. Your comparison determines which one, and you can link directly to your product page with schema markup for the comparison.
Best [product category] roundup pages attract shoppers in active research mode. Yes, you feature competitors alongside your own products. That builds trust because you’re not pretending alternatives don’t exist. The Wirecutter built a publishing empire on this format.
[Competitor] alternatives content picks up dissatisfied shoppers. Someone searching ‘Peloton alternatives’ is price-sensitive or subscription-averse. Name their frustration and present your product as the logical answer.
Gift guides for [your target audience] are seasonal goldmines. ‘Gifts for remote workers under £50’ lets you feature products from your catalogue in a context that removes the promotional feel entirely.
All four formats work because the visitor arrives close to a purchase decision. Comparison pages regularly outperform homepage traffic for direct sales by a factor of three on the WooCommerce shops I’ve worked on.
Keep Out-of-Stock Pages Live (You’re Burning Link Equity)
Deleting a product page when stock runs out is one of the costliest mistakes in ecommerce SEO. That URL has accumulated backlinks and ranking history over months or years, and the moment you 404 it, Google drops it from the index. All that authority vanishes.
The instinct is to assume those visitors are lost. McKinsey found that 43% of shoppers will buy from a different brand when they hit an out-of-stock page, but a significant portion will pick an alternative from the same shop if you present one. Two approaches work well here.
Recommend Related Products
Show three to five similar items on the out-of-stock page itself. In Shopify, the product.recommendations object in your Liquid templates pulls related items based on purchase history and product tags. WooCommerce handles this through its Related Products settings. Add a note about when the original item might return, so visitors know whether to wait or switch.
Capture Restock Notifications
If the product is coming back, turn the dead-end into a lead generation page. Klaviyo, Back in Stock by Swym, and Notify Me by Automizely all handle restock notifications natively within Shopify. The visitor has high purchase intent right now, so capturing their email whilst that intent is warm beats a generic newsletter signup. Include options for size or colour preferences so the notification is specific.
Both approaches keep the URL indexed and preserve your link equity, which is the whole point. You get a shot at the conversion rather than handing it to Google’s next result.
Set Up Google Merchant Center Properly (Not Just Partially)
If your shop isn’t in Google Shopping, you’re missing the placement that captures over 75% of retail search ad spend in the US. Shopping results sit above organic listings for most product queries, and they convert at 1.91% across all verticals with a cost per click typically under a dollar.
Why Feeds Get Disapproved
Getting into Merchant Center isn’t difficult, but keeping your feed approved is where most shops come unstuck. Disapprovals silently pull your products from Shopping results, and they usually come from one of three places: mismatched pricing between your feed and your landing page (Shopify’s Merchant Center app syncs this automatically, but WooCommerce shops using CTX Feed or Product Feed Pro need to check their cron schedule), missing GTIN or MPN fields, or inventory data showing products as available when they’re sold out on-site.
Optimising Your Feed for Visibility
Google matches Shopping results to search queries through your feed title, not your on-page SEO. ‘Nike Air Max 90 Men’s Running Shoe White’ outperforms a bare ‘Air Max 90’ because it matches more long-tail searches. Use the format Brand + Product Type + Key Attribute for every product in your feed. Product images need a white background for the primary shot too; blurry lifestyle images or watermarked photos are a common reason for disapprovals.
If feed management feels like a proper faff, Mint SEO’s ecommerce SEO consulting service includes Merchant Center setup and ongoing feed optimisation.
Convert High-Traffic Pages Into Email Subscribers
Ecommerce shops with mature email programmes pull between 20% and 30% of their turnover from email during peak trading. Klaviyo’s benchmark data shows shops with annual turnover above £8M generate roughly a third of Q4 sales through email, and the general industry return sits between $36 and $40 for every dollar invested. The bottleneck for most shops is building the list, and that’s where SEO comes in.
Finding the Right Pages
Look at your Google Analytics landing page report and identify pages with decent traffic but conversion rates below 1%. Blog posts and buying guides are the usual suspects. These visitors aren’t ready to buy today, but they’re interested enough to have clicked through from Google. A well-timed popup or embedded signup form converts that interest into a recoverable email address.
Making the Signup Worth It
Generic ‘subscribe to our newsletter’ forms convert poorly because there’s no tangible reason to hand over an email address. A specific incentive changes that: a 10% to 15% discount code for first-time buyers, early access to restocks, or a downloadable buying guide relevant to the page’s topic.
Donald Miller proved through StoryBrand how powerful that last option can be. He built a massive email list off the back of a single PDF called ‘5 Mistakes Companies Make in Their Marketing’. It worked because it delivered genuine value before asking for anything. The same principle applies to ecommerce: a short guide that saves your visitor time or money beats a vague promise of ‘updates and offers’. Tools like Privy, Justuno, and OptiMonk integrate with Shopify and let you trigger these popups based on scroll depth, exit intent, or time on page.
Treat Reviews as a Ranking and Conversion Asset
The December 2025 core update hit ecommerce sites hard, demoting thin content and shops with poor trust signals. Reviews are one of the strongest ways to build that trust back up, both for Google and for the shoppers landing on your pages. Whitespark’s Local Search Ranking Factors survey consistently ranks high star ratings and positive review sentiment as the top conversion factors for Google Business Profile listings, and the effect carries across to organic ecommerce results too.
How Reviews Affect Your Rankings
Product schema markup (the Review and AggregateRating types) can trigger star ratings in your search snippets, which lifts click-through rates. Fresh reviews signal that your shop is active, and Google uses review velocity to separate thriving businesses from dormant ones. Customers also naturally drop product-relevant keywords into their reviews, adding topical depth to your pages that you couldn’t write yourself.
Building a System That Collects Reviews Consistently
Judge.me and Yotpo are the two most popular review apps for Shopify, and both support post-purchase email flows with configurable timing. Send the review request 7 to 14 days after delivery, not after dispatch; too early and the customer hasn’t used the product, too late and the purchase buzz has worn off. Loyalty points or prize draw entries are fine as incentives, but direct payment for reviews breaches most platform terms and risks your entire history being wiped.
Once reviews are flowing in, display them beyond just the product page. Category pages benefit from aggregate rating data, and a dedicated reviews page with ecommerce CRO principles applied creates an additional trust-building page with internal linking opportunities.
Use Digital PR to Build Links That Move Rankings
Guest posting at scale stopped being effective years ago. The links that shift rankings for competitive ecommerce terms come from digital PR campaigns, and those campaigns need original data or a genuine news angle to land coverage.
Creating Research That Journalists Want
Survey your customer base for insights that extend beyond your products: a pet supplies shop could poll 2,000 dog owners on spending habits, or a skincare brand could commission lab testing comparing SPF claims to actual protection levels. The data needs to write a headline on its own. ‘The Apple AirPods 4 were Gen Z’s most requested Christmas gift in 2025, with 78% of survey respondents citing them’ lands because an editor can see the story immediately.
Getting the Pitch Right
Journalists at national outlets receive hundreds of pitches daily, so matching your research to the right person is what separates campaigns that land from ones that get binned. Tools like Roxhill and Response Source in the UK let you find journalists actively requesting sources on relevant topics. Lead with your most surprising finding, package it as an infographic where possible, and include a methodology appendix so editorial teams can verify the data.
Mint SEO’s digital PR and link building service runs these campaigns for ecommerce clients across the UK. The link above has examples of recent campaigns and results.
Each of these ecommerce SEO strategies targets a specific point where shops lose money. Category targeting stops cannibalisation. Buyer content puts products in front of active shoppers. Out-of-stock pages preserve authority. Merchant Center opens Shopping. Email capture converts informational traffic. Reviews build trust. Digital PR earns the backlinks that shift competitive terms. Pick the one that plugs your biggest gap and build from there.
