Most shop owners I’ve audited through Search Console are chasing the wrong keywords entirely. They throw one trophy term at their homepage, ignore the category and product-level searches that actually bring in buyers, and wonder why nothing ranks. Proper ecommerce keyword research starts with understanding that Google treats different searches as completely different jobs, and each job belongs to a specific page type on your site.
The pattern I’ve spotted across ecommerce accounts is nearly always the same: big spend chasing broad terms that Amazon and IKEA have sewn up, whilst hundreds of buyer-ready searches go completely untargeted. Fixing that mismatch is where the real gains sit.
How Google Matches Keywords to Page Types
The reason this matters so much for ecommerce is that Google doesn’t just rank pages, it matches page formats to search intent. Search ‘running shoes’ and you’ll get category pages from Nike, ASICS, and Sports Direct, because the algorithm has learnt that someone using a broad product term wants to browse options. Search ‘ASICS Gel-Kayano 14 silver size 9’ and every result is a product page, because that specificity signals someone who already knows what they’re buying. A ‘how to’ query returns blog posts and editorial guides, because the intent is informational rather than transactional.
Your keyword map needs to respect these patterns. If you assign a blog-style informational keyword to a product page, Google will look at the SERP for that term, see that every other result is an editorial guide, and conclude your product page doesn’t belong there. The same thing happens in reverse: targeting a transactional category keyword with a blog post means competing against product grids from shops that have the right page format for the job.
The practical way to check this is dead simple. Search the keyword yourself, look at what Google actually shows on page one, and note whether the results are mostly category pages, product pages, blog posts, or a mix. That tells you which page type on your own site should be targeting that term. If you haven’t got a page that matches the format Google expects, you either need to build one or pick a different keyword.
Homepage Keywords
Homepage terms define your entire shop. They carry high volumes but brutal competition, and they rarely convert directly because someone searching a broad brand-level term is usually just getting the lay of the land rather than reaching for their card.
- ‘sustainable fashion UK’
- ‘organic pet food online’
- ‘handmade jewellery UK’
- ‘vintage furniture shop’
Target three to five of these on your homepage, and pick the ones that separate you from the marketplace giants. ‘Handmade jewellery UK’ is a lane a smaller shop can own, because the big marketplaces don’t specialise in handmade goods. ‘Jewellery’ on its own is Amazon’s lane, and no amount of on-page optimisation will change that. Treat homepage keywords as the top of your ecommerce SEO strategy guide, setting the thematic direction for every page beneath them in the site architecture, but don’t expect them to fill the till.
Category Page Keywords
This is where the money is. Category pages rank for transactional phrases of two to four words where the searcher is already in buying mode, and these terms often carry tens of thousands of monthly searches with proper commercial intent behind them.
- ‘mens boots’
- ‘wireless headphones’
- ‘dumbbells’
- ‘dining chairs’
- ‘kitchen knives’
Those are the bare terms, and they’re fiercely competitive on their own. The real skill is in understanding how modifiers change the intent behind them.
Why Modifiers Matter
Stick a modifier on any of those base keywords and you shift who the search attracts entirely:
- Material: ‘leather mens boots’, ‘bamboo dining chairs’
- Feature: ‘noise-cancelling wireless headphones’, ‘adjustable dumbbells’
- Brand: ‘Nike mens boots’, ‘Sony wireless headphones’
- Price intent: ‘cheap kitchen knives’, ‘budget wireless headphones’
- Use case: ‘gaming headphones’, ‘outdoor dining chairs’
The difference this makes to your traffic is significant. ‘Cheap wireless headphones’ pulls bargain hunters who are comparing on price, whilst ‘best wireless headphones’ pulls researchers who’ll read every review on the page before committing. Same base keyword, but the modifier tells you exactly which customer you’re speaking to and what kind of content your category page needs to satisfy them.
Depth Counts
A category page with three products won’t rank. Google expects enough products to justify the page, proper filters by size and colour, and descriptive copy that tells the crawler what the collection covers. In Shopify, that means filling the collection description field and having a decent product count before chasing competitive terms against established retailers.
Product Page Keywords
Product pages target the most specific searches in your keyword map: model numbers, full product names, colour variants.
- ‘Sony WH-1000XM5 black’
- ‘Herman Miller Aeron Size B’
- ‘Breville Barista Express BES870XL’
- ‘MacBook Pro 14 M3 Space Grey’
The volume per keyword is lower than category terms, but conversion rates on these precise searches run roughly double what broad terms deliver, because the person typing a full model number and colour has already done their research and decided what they want.
Most Shopify shops get this wrong by using generic titles. A product called ‘Coffee Machine’ is invisible to someone searching for the exact Breville model they’ve already decided to buy. Your product title in Shopify admin needs the full name, model number, and colour variant, and the meta title field gives you 60 characters to get those details in front of Google.
Blog Keywords
Blog content captures people earlier in the buying cycle, at the point where they’re researching rather than purchasing. The competition is lower here because the big retailers rarely bother creating helpful guides when they could be listing more products instead.
- ‘how to measure ring size at home’
- ‘difference between memory foam and pocket sprung’
- ‘what size road bike do I need’
- ‘how to clean leather boots’
That gap between what people search and what the large shops bother to publish is your opening. The person reading your ring sizing guide today is the person buying a ring from you next month, and each blog post you publish builds topical authority that strengthens your category pages over time. A proper ecommerce content marketing plan turns this from the occasional blog post into a systematic pipeline that feeds the rest of your site.
Finding the Right Keywords
Start With What’s Already Ranking
Open Google Search Console‘s Performance report and sort by impressions rather than clicks. Filter for positions 11 to 20, because those are the keywords where you’re sitting on page two, just outside the zone where traffic actually flows. Moving a keyword from position 14 to position 6 can triple your click-through rate, whilst moving from position 42 to 34 changes virtually nothing in terms of actual visitors.
Spy on Competitor Gaps
Plug a competitor’s domain into Ahrefs‘ Site Explorer and export their top organic pages. You’re looking for keywords they rank for where you haven’t got a page at all. If three competing shops all rank for ‘bamboo bedding benefits’, there’s likely decent search volume behind that term even if the keyword tools show low numbers. The Content Gap report does the heavy lifting here, letting you compare up to ten domains at once to find terms your competitors share that you’re missing.
Pick Your Tools
Ahrefs is the one I open first. Keywords Explorer shows ranking difficulty based on actual backlink profiles rather than a made-up score, and the SERP overview for any keyword shows you who ranks and why, which is more useful than any single metric.
Semrush is stronger for paid search data. If competitors are bidding on a keyword in Google Ads, that’s a clear signal it has commercial value, and it’s a signal that organic-only tools miss.
Google Search Console is free and criminally underused by most shop owners. It shows actual queries, actual positions, and actual click-through rates from your own site data, with no estimates involved.
AlsoAsked.com maps the ‘People Also Ask’ results into a visual tree, which is spot on for planning blog content around the real questions your audience types into Google.
Search Patterns That Outperform
Beyond the four page types, a few search patterns consistently punch above their weight. Each targets a different stage of the buying decision, and they need different page formats to rank properly.
Comparison Searches
Someone typing ‘Ninja vs Vitamix blenders’ has already narrowed their options to two. They’re not browsing a category or learning about blenders in general. They’re one piece of validation away from pulling the trigger.
- ‘Ninja vs Vitamix blenders’
- ‘Allbirds vs Veja trainers’
- ‘iPhone 15 vs Samsung S24’
Comparison blog posts that target these ‘[product] vs [product]’ terms convert brilliantly because the buying intent is baked into the search itself. The person has done their research and just needs someone to confirm their leaning.
Problem-Led Searches
These work differently from comparison terms. Instead of naming a specific product, the searcher describes a problem they need solved, which means the content on your page can speak directly to that pain point.
- ‘shoes for wide feet’
- ‘laptops for video editing’
- ‘mattress for back pain’
The conversion rates on problem-led keywords tend to run higher than generic feature terms because the person is telling you their need outright. Category pages optimised around problem phrasing pick up traffic that competitors targeting only standard terms miss entirely.
Pre-Purchase Investigation
The final pattern sits right at the bottom of the funnel, where the searcher has already decided to spend money and is just looking for reassurance or a better price.
- ‘[brand] discount codes’
- ‘[product] reviews 2025’
- ‘is [product] worth it’
- ‘[brand] alternatives’
Blog posts and dedicated landing pages that capture these terms put your shop in front of people who need one last push before they hand over their card.
Turning Keywords Into Revenue
A spreadsheet of keywords is worthless if they’re not mapped to actual pages on your site. Every keyword needs one assigned URL, with no overlap and no two pages competing for the same term. In Shopify, that means one collection per category keyword, one product page per product keyword, and one blog post per informational term. If you’ve got two collections both targeting ‘mens leather boots’, Google has to choose between them, and in my experience it’ll usually end up ranking neither properly.
Track which keywords generate actual sales rather than just rankings. A number one spot for a keyword that sends tyre-kickers is worth less than fifth place for a term that sends buyers. I reckon most shop owners would be gobsmacked at how few of their ranking keywords account for the bulk of their revenue.
If the research side of this feels like too much faff, or you haven’t got access to tools like Ahrefs, our ecommerce SEO consulting service includes ongoing keyword research matched to your specific product catalogue.
