Ecommerce SEO built for sales and profitability

• Demand

  Not every keyword with search volume deserves its own URL. There must be a distinct intent and an offer able to answer it.

• Stock

  Ranking categories and products that can't be sold reliably limits the commercial value of the strategy.

• Margin

  Two categories with similar revenue can generate very different profitability.

• Conversion

  Traffic needs to be analysed alongside sales, revenue, average order value and the quality of the buying experience.

La Policía del SEO doesn't necessarily manage the client's pricing, stock or profitability: it's data that, when available, is used to prioritise the work.

Faceted navigation can generate combinations across many criteria, and each combination can produce a URL:

• Brand
• Price
• Colour
• Size
• Material
• Features
• Availability
• Rating
• Sorting
• Parameters
• Combinations of several filters

The concept of crawl budget shouldn't be overstated for small stores: its relevance grows with large catalogues or many URL combinations.

• Status

  Temporarily out of stock

  The URL can be kept when there's a reasonable expectation of restocking. The page should:

  • State the real status
  • Avoid ambiguous messages
  • Allow availability alerts when that feature exists
  • Offer relevant alternatives
  • Keep useful information
• Status

  Discontinued with an equivalent replacement

  A redirect can be worth considering when there's a genuinely equivalent product useful for the same intent. Automatically redirecting every discontinued product to the parent category isn't advisable.

• Status

  Discontinued with no replacement

  The decision can depend on several factors, without prescribing a 301, 404 or 410 automatically:

  • Backlinks received
  • Historical traffic
  • Demand
  • Useful information
  • Available alternatives
  • The relevance of keeping the page
• Status

  Empty categories

  It's best to avoid keeping indexable commercial categories with no products, no alternatives and no real usefulness.

• Demand research by country and language
• Local commercial terminology
• Currency
• Availability
• Shipping costs and conditions
• Visible taxation where relevant
• Stock by market
• Domains, subdomains or subfolders
• hreflang
• Canonicals
• Different catalogues
• Products not available in every country
• Adapted content
• Customer support and returns
• Consistent URLs

1. 01

   Understanding the business

   • Catalogue
   • Categories
   • Products
   • Stock
   • Margin
   • Markets
   • Seasonality
   • Purchase process
   • Technical limitations
2. 02

   Demand map

   • Categories
   • Subcategories
   • Products
   • Attributes
   • Brands
   • Problems
   • Comparisons
   • Informational and transactional searches
3. 03

   Indexation audit

   • Existing URLs
   • Facets
   • Filters
   • Parameters
   • Pagination
   • Internal search
   • Canonicals
   • Duplicates
   • Out-of-stock products
   • Pages with no demand
4. 04

   Architecture

   • Assign a primary intent to each URL
   • Decide which pages should exist
   • Consolidate overlaps
   • Connect categories and products
   • Set priorities
5. 05

   Category and product page optimisation

   • Content
   • Attributes
   • Metadata
   • Internal linking
   • Commercial information
   • Structured data
   • Mobile experience
6. 06

   Measurement and improvement

   • Connect searches and landing pages to sales
   • Spot categories with potential
   • Review stock
   • Analyse conversion
   • Prioritise by commercial impact

This strategy can be delivered through a monthly SEO service that combines analysis, implementation and ongoing improvement of the catalogue.

• What matters more for SEO: categories or products?

  It depends on the search. Categories usually answer broad, exploratory and comparison queries; product pages answer specific brand, model or reference searches. It isn't a fixed hierarchy, but a split based on the intent behind each query.

• Should I index every filter in my store?

  No. Only combinations with demand, a sufficient offer, original content and stable usefulness should be considered for indexable pages. The rest of the filters can still be useful for navigation without needing independent organic presence.

• What do I do with an out-of-stock product?

  It depends on the scenario: temporarily out of stock (the URL can be kept with the real status and alternatives), discontinued with an equivalent replacement (a redirect can be worth considering), and discontinued with no replacement (the decision weighs backlinks, historical traffic and usefulness). Applying one universal rule to the whole catalogue isn't advisable.

• Do manufacturer descriptions hurt SEO?

  They can produce content that's poorly differentiated and shared with many retailers. The fix isn't adding text for its own sake, but providing original, useful information that helps the purchase decision and describes the product accurately.

• How many products does a category need to rank?

  There's no fixed number. It depends on search intent, the available offer, competition, the depth of the catalogue and how useful the page is for the user.

• Do I need a blog to rank an online store?

  It can help with informational and comparison searches, but it doesn't replace categories, product pages or a correct architecture. Editorial content should support the catalogue, not compete with it.

• Does structured data guarantee rich results?

  No. It helps describe product information, but it must be valid, visible and consistent with the page. Whether it shows up as a rich result depends on the search engine and is never guaranteed.

• How long does ecommerce SEO take?

  We don't give a fixed timeframe. It depends on technical health, catalogue size, authority, competition, implementation, indexation, resources and demand. SEO and GEO are ongoing processes.