Complete Guide for Optimizing SEO for Category Pages

E-commerce & SEO category pages

You know the importance of SEO e-commerce to improve brand visibility. However,  SEO optimisation of your site alone cannot bring a huge amount of traffic and conversion. You need to do SEO for e-commerce category pages to get a high volume of traffic. SEO refers to the process of optimizing a website’s content, structure and technical aspects to improve its visibility organically. It is also applicable to product descriptions as well as category pages. 

What are category pages in an E-commerce store?

Category pages in e-commerce stores organize products of all kinds into clusters and groups of similarities. It helps in easy allocation of products and the site’s navigation. Unique and engaging content, keyword optimization and user experience optimization are the top ways to optimize category pages for SEO. Many e-commerce websites use different kinds of category listings depending on their niche. 

The benefits of SEO category pages 

All major e-commerce players such as Alibaba, Decathlon and Amazon optimize category pages to avail these benefits:

• It helps you understand site structure
• It helps in easy navigation
• It distributes equal ranking for SERP pages
• It helps in the effective distribution of page ranking
• It improves SERP rankings
• It results in higher user satisfaction
• It retains brand awareness and brand equity
• It promotes easy indexing and crawling for search engine

How to optimise category pages

Creating category pages with these tips to e-commerce category page optimization will surely help you get brand visibility and increased conversions.

• Chronological order for category pages

To index and crawl your web page, a chronological order of product category page is very essential. It helps in easy indexing without missing relevant pages. It also allows users to search for an item within seconds. Not only does the chronological order of category pages help but the consequent order of site URL. 

• Content 

Engaging content helps a user to make a purchase decision. You can provide helpful content that covers all desired aspects of the product and end-user search. Sometimes it includes useful guides that provide additional information. Add as much as key information chronologically including header tags. 

• Internal Links

Prospects searching for an item might need something else complementing the current search. So it makes sense if you provide an internal link to items in the parent category to the subcategory. You will receive increased leads, conversions and more traffic. To link categories, do manual linking of renowned categories as well as automated linking. 

• Long-tail categories & consistent layout

To help users pick what they want without wandering, you need to create categories ending with long-tail names. It is specific and helps in purchase decisions. These long-tail categories need a stunning layout to display products. From colour scheme to CTAs everything must be organized in ship-shape.

• Crisp Copy

You should ensure that your e-commerce store contains a concise and crisp ad copy that motivates the user to take immediate action. This kind of ad copy attracts traffic. Sometimes, it is a wonderful written copy that captures attention first and then the product. So, be specific and interesting as possible. 

• Reviews

You may wonder how reviews become a part of SEO. It is because the review is user-generated content that you can display in the category as well as on product pages. It encourages other users to consider the product on their wish list and leads to purchase. 

• Heading tags and title tags

Heading tags and title tags must be connected with the product description. It must provide useful information about the item displayed. You can test some formats on your online store and readymade templates. 

• Structured Data

Structured data assure enhanced search results, increased visibility, better product categorization, rich snippets and more sales for your e-commerce business. You can either code it or use online schema generators. It helps understand what is inside your website.

• Interact online

It takes time to make a lasting impression on category pages but the effort will not be in vain. One way is to interact with searchers or prospects. When they surf through your e-commerce pages, they will have a lot of concerns and questions. What you can do is answer each question that has an upvote and this will be reflected on product pages. It increases trust and the number of leads and conversions. The PAA section of Google will reflect all your efforts in answering interactions. 

• Include attractive UX elements 

Include attractive UX elements on your product and category pages to lure customers and provide them with a rated user experience. Page loading speed, clear content on headline and colour scheme and other attributes contribute to higher user experience.

• High definition images 

We all love clear, high-definition images. This is true for your targets. When they search for an item, you need to provide pictures in multiple angles and it is an engaging way. Multiple-angle photos make it easier to decipher to get a picture of how an item will look exactly when you get it. This is especially true for ornaments.  

To get a high rank from a search engine being an e-commerce website owner is not rocket science. You see the vital requirement is having SEO category pages and an understanding of how to rank category pages. Your e-commerce site architecture majorly depends on how strategically you have created your category and product pages. If you have difficulty optimizing SEO for e-commerce product pages, you can seek help from an SEO company.  Effective categorisation certainly improves accessibility and navigation within your website, helping Google and searchers in finding desired products easily.