SEO for
online stores.

People rarely search for a product code. They search 'linen sheets', 'kids school shoes' or 'cordless drill'. Those searches land on category pages, so for most stores the category page is the most valuable page in SEO.

Most category pages are a grid of products and nothing else. Give each one a heading that matches the search, a short intro that helps someone choose, links to the subcategories, and answers to the two or three questions people ask before buying. Put the intro where people will see it, not in a paragraph hidden under the grid.

Every filter a shopper clicks, like colour, size or price, can create a new web address. Combine a few filters across a few dozen categories and the numbers run into the millions. Google says filtered pages are the most common source of crawling problems it sees, and that often there's no good reason to let it crawl them.

Some filters are worth a page, because people search that way: 'white linen sheets', 'Nike running shoes'. Those should be real pages with a proper heading. The rest, like 'under $100, size 9, sorted by newest', should be kept out with robots.txt. One catch: robots.txt stops crawling, not indexing. If filter pages are already in Google, take them out first with a noindex tag or a canonical, then block them. If you do let Google crawl filters, Google asks you to keep the filter order fixed and return a 404 for empty combinations.

If your product page uses the same description as every other store selling the item, Google has little reason to pick yours. Its own guidance asks whether content provides original information, rather than copying other sources. Add what only you can: your own photos, sizing or fit notes, what's in the box, delivery times to real places, and answers to questions customers have asked.

Add product structured data, code that tells Google the price, stock and reviews in a format it reads directly. Google uses it for product rich results and merchant listings, the results with prices and stars.

• Out of stock but coming back: keep the page live, say when, and offer a notify-me button
• Gone for good: redirect to the closest replacement or the category, not the home page
• Variants (sizes, colours): usually one page with options, unless people search for each variant separately

Start with the top 20 categories by revenue. Fix their headings and intros, check which filters are being indexed, and add structured data to the product template once, so every product gets it. For most stores that does more than writing blog posts.

Then look at what people search before they're ready to buy: 'linen vs cotton sheets', 'how to wash linen'. Those are where buying guides earn their keep. Search Relationship Mapping shows which of those searches connect to your categories.