Apply SEO best practices gleaned from original, large-scale research on the real-world viability of ranking for ecommerce categories, faceted search and product detail pages. Slides from SMX West 2020 with thanks to smart digital marketing agency JumpFly, and research in partnership with seoClarity.

1. @JillKocher
SCALABLE OPTIMIZATION
ECOMMERCE CATEGORY PAGES

2. @JillKocher
14 years of ecommerce SEO experience:
10-year columnist at Practical Ecommerce
Peer edited “The Art of SEO” book
JILL KOCHER BROWN
SEO DIRECTOR,
JUMPFLY

3. @JillKocher
Product and
Category Pages

4. @JillKocher
PLACE IN THE FUNNEL
• Category pages
• Top of funnel, generic searches
• Head and torso: Larger search volume
• Ex: I want a DSLR camera
• Product Pages
• Lower funnel, specific searches
• Longer tail queries
• Ex: I want the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV

5. @JillKocher
WHERE TO SPEND YOUR TIME?
Surveyed 30+ top ecom sites
ranking for 25B keywords
to see which performed better:
product or category pages.

6. @JillKocher
Share these #SMXInsights on your social channels!
• Categories outperform across
27 top ecom sites
• More keywords, more traffic and
more potential
Category, 67%
Category, 89%
Category, 81%
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
more ranking keywords
more estimated traffic
more potential traffic
Category Product
* Source: seoClarity Research Grid

7. @JillKocher
Share these #SMXInsights on your social channels!
32%more traffic
potential
Ecommerce category page performance compared to product pages:
19%more ranking
keywords
413%more estimated
traffic
* Source: seoClarity Research Grid

8. @JillKocher
ROOM TO IMPROVE
Product Page
share of voice captured
* Source: seoClarity Research Grid
Category Page
share of voice captured
9%
91%
2%
98%

9. @JillKocher
RESULTS VARIED BY ECOMMERCE SECTOR…
Stronger Product Pages
Sector with specific feature
and product keywords
* Source: seoClarity Research Grid
Stronger Category Pages
Sectors with generic head
and torso keywords

10. @JillKocher
BUT WERE CONSISTENT ACROSS DTC
233%more traffic
potential
Direct-to-consumer category pages compared to product pages:
356%more ranking
keywords
202%more estimated
traffic
* Source: seoClarity Research Grid

11. @JillKocher
THE OUTLIER: AMAZON
Amazon’s product
pages compared to
category pages
Cause: Past
reluctance to index
deeper category
pages?
Products, 219.5 x
Products, 57.5 x
Products, 275.7 x
- 50.0 100.0 150.0 200.0 250.0 300.0
more ranking keywords
more estimated traffic
more potential traffic
* Source: seoClarity Research Grid

12. @JillKocher
THE ONLY DATA THAT MATTERS IS YOURS
• Identify URL
differentiators
• Collect for product and category
URL structures:
– Number of keywords ranking
– Estimated traffic driven
– Potential traffic driven
• Download the template:
jumpf.ly/smxwest

13. @JillKocher
xxx
SCALABLE CATEGORY SEO:
ONE CHANGE, MANY PAGES

14. @JillKocher
SCALABLE SEO STARTS WITH ARCHITECTURE
How you
organize and
label product
inventory and
content drives
ecom SEO
#1 #2

15. @JillKocher
OPTIMIZING TAXONOMY
• Create optimal parent-child
relationships between pages
• Based on business needs and search behavior
• Better semantic crawling, indexation
• Stronger user experience onsite
• Goal: Flat and compact, < 5 levels
deep

16. @JillKocher
OPTIMIZING NAVIGATION
• Internal link structure
and labels used inherited
from taxonomy
• Some modification possible
• Link to what you want to rank for
• Balance between UX and SEO
• Research value of pages to include
• Use real HTML links <a href=“https://www.site.com/”>
• Example: Macy’s meganav links shoppers
(and bots) 3 levels into their site with 1
click.

17. @JillKocher
OPTIMIZING FILTERS/FACETED NAVIGATION
• Ensure URL updates with each
facet applied
• Optimize each page uniquely
• Control multifacet and low-value indexation
• Watch out for duplicate content
• Example: Wayfair filtered pages win clicks
for 1M searches a month across 257K
keywords.

18. @JillKocher
OPTIMIZING PAGE TEMPLATES
• Optimize “formulas” for
default page elements
• Title tags and meta descriptions
• Headings
• Alt attributes for image tags
• Look for ways to gently add elements
• Customer-focused sections and headings
• Small textual descriptions

19. @JillKocher
SEE YOU AT THE NEXT SMX!
THANK YOU!