Ecommerce SEO measured in orders, not sessions.
Shoppers search by product, by problem and by price, and Google decides whose category page gets the click. We run ecommerce SEO for online stores and D2C brands: clearing the technical mess that filters and stock changes leave behind, building category pages worth ranking, and reporting what organic search adds to revenue.
Ecommerce SEO is the work of getting an online store's category and product pages ranking for the searches shoppers make before they buy. It covers crawl control for filters and variants, category page content, original product copy, product structured data and Merchant Center feeds, and internal linking, judged by the organic revenue it produces.
Three searches. Three different pages.
A shopper rarely buys on their first search. Each stage needs its own page, and most stores only build the last one.
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Where online stores leak revenue.
Six problems we find on most store audits, ordered by how quickly they cost you sales.
Filters that create endless URLs
Every mix of size, colour, price and sort order can become a crawlable URL. Google's own documentation says this causes overcrawling and slows the discovery of new pages. We decide which filtered pages deserve to rank and keep crawlers off the rest.
Sold-out products that vanish
Deleting a product the day it sells out throws away its links and rankings. If it's coming back, keep the page and mark it out of stock. If it's gone for good, redirect to the closest replacement, or let it return a 404 when nothing fits.
The supplier's description, word for word
Paste the manufacturer's copy and you share it with every retailer who did the same. Google has no reason to prefer your page. We rewrite best-sellers first, using sizing notes, care advice and the questions sitting in your support inbox.
Category pages with nothing to say
A grid of 48 products and a heading gives Google very little to rank for a term like "men's linen shirts". A short intro, buying advice and a few FAQs under the grid give the page a reason to win.
Product schema that's missing or wrong
Price, availability, shipping and returns in structured data make a product page eligible for Google's merchant listing results. Pair it with a Merchant Center feed and products can appear in free listings across Search, Images and the Shopping tab.
Two URLs for every Shopify product
Many Shopify themes link to products through collection paths, so each product gets a second address. A canonical tag points to the clean URL, but changing the theme's internal links removes the confusion at source.
What we do for online stores
One retainer that covers the technical, the editorial and the measurement. You run the store. We make it easier to find.
Crawl and index control
Rules for filters, sort orders and pagination, plus robots.txt, canonicals and XML sitemaps, so Google spends its time on the pages you actually sell from.
Category page builds
Collections mapped to real search demand, with intros, buying help and links to the sub-categories people search for, like "wide fit" or "under $50".
Product copy that isn't the supplier's
Rewrites for best-sellers and high-margin lines first, covering fit, materials, care and how one product compares with its neighbours.
Structured data and Merchant Center
Product and Offer markup with shipping and return policy details, checked in Search Console, with your product feed kept in step so prices and stock always match.
Platform fixes
Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce or Adobe Commerce: theme and template fixes for duplicate URLs, slow pages, layered navigation and redirects when products retire.
Guides, links and AI answers
Buying guides and gift guides that earn links and send shoppers into categories, plus tracking whether ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews recommend your products.
SEO, Shopping ads or marketplaces?
Most growing stores use all three. They do different jobs and cost money in different ways.
| SEO | Google Shopping ads | Marketplaces (Amazon, eBay, Etsy) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How you pay | Monthly retainer or in-house time | Per click, priced at auction | Selling fees on each order, set by the marketplace |
| Who owns the customer | You: the email address and the repeat order | You, once they land on your site | Mostly the marketplace |
| Speed | Months for competitive categories | Days, once your feed is approved | Days to list, longer to rank inside the platform |
| Margin over time | Improves as rankings compound | Squeezed as rivals bid on your terms | Squeezed by fees and sellers listed next to you |
| Best for | Categories and products with steady search demand | Best-sellers and launches you need seen this week | Extra reach, if the fees and rules work for you |
Weighing where the next dollar goes? Our ROAS calculator and SEO vs PPC guide set out the trade-off with your own numbers.
Your first 90 days
A typical first quarter for an established store. How fast categories move depends on competition and your domain's history. Here's what drives the timeline.
Crawl and baseline
Full site crawl, Search Console and GA4 review, a map of filter and duplicate URLs, a product schema check, and organic revenue by category recorded so we measure from a real starting number.
Categories first
Highest-revenue categories rebuilt with intros and FAQs, filter rules shipped, schema errors fixed, and an agreed policy for out-of-stock and discontinued products.
Products and guides
Best-seller product copy rewritten, the first buying guides published and linked into categories, link outreach under way, and the first report on organic revenue, orders and conversion rate.
$11.3K to $47.5K a month.
Our SEO retainer is $1,199 a month, with the same deliverables listed on our SEO packages page. Our published SEO retainer is $1,199 a month. For once the proof is from your own world: our strongest result came from an online store, a craft cannabinoid brand selling direct, where payment processors and ad platforms add friction most shops never face.
Sources: Google Search Central, "Managing crawling of faceted navigation URLs"; Google Search Central, "Introduction to Product structured data" and "Merchant listing structured data"; Google Merchant Center Help, "About free listings"; Google Search Central, "Spam policies for Google web search"; Shopify Help Center, "Editing robots.txt.liquid"; Amsive, "Resolving Shopify duplicate content between collection and product pages"; Federal Trade Commission, final rule banning fake reviews and testimonials (August 2024). Case-study figures from Hello Bleu client GA4 and Google Ads data, client names withheld.
Free store SEO audit.
Send us your store URL. We'll crawl it and show you where filters, duplicate URLs and thin categories are costing you organic sales.
- Crawl wasteHow many filter, sort and duplicate URLs Google is finding, and which of them are being indexed.
- Category gapsSearches with real demand where you have no category page, or one too thin to compete.
- Product markupWhether your product pages carry valid price, availability, shipping and returns data.
Prefer to talk it through? Book a free 30-minute call →
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Book a Free CallFrequently asked questions
How much do ecommerce SEO services cost?
Hello Bleu's SEO retainer is $1,199 a month and covers technical fixes, category and product content, structured data, link building and reporting. Ecommerce SEO tends to cost more than local SEO across the market, because stores carry thousands of URLs and platform quirks. Big catalogue changes or migrations may also need time from your developer. Our SEO cost guide explains how agencies price it.
How long before ecommerce SEO shows up in revenue?
Technical fixes like filter rules and schema often show up in Search Console within weeks. Rankings for competitive category terms take months, and revenue follows rankings. Our cannabinoid client grew from $11.3K to $47.5K in monthly organic revenue over 18 months, not one quarter. We'll set expectations category by category on the first call.
Should we delete products when they go out of stock?
Usually not. If a product is coming back, keep the page live, show a restock date if you have one and mark it out of stock in your structured data. If it's discontinued, redirect it to the closest replacement or its category. If nothing comparable exists, a 404 is the honest answer. Redirecting everything to the home page helps nobody.
Is Shopify bad for SEO?
No, but it has limits. Product and collection paths are fixed, themes often create a second URL for each product through collection links, and robots.txt can only be changed through a robots.txt.liquid template, which Shopify itself calls an unsupported customisation. We work inside those limits and fix what can be fixed in the theme.
Can we offer discounts in exchange for reviews?
Be careful. The FTC's 2024 rule on reviews and testimonials bans offering incentives conditioned on a positive or negative review, buying fake reviews and hiding insider reviews without disclosure. You can ask every customer for an honest review. Genuine reviews help product pages sell. Bought ones are a legal risk you don't need.
Can you guarantee page one for our main categories?
No. Nobody controls Google's rankings, and anyone promising a position for "women's running shoes" is guessing. What we commit to is the monthly work, transparent reporting and tracking organic revenue back to the categories and products that produced it. If something isn't moving, you'll hear it from us first.
From The Bleu Print
Guides from our team on the questions we get asked most.
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The formula, worked examples for ads, SEO and your budget, and four free calculators that do the maths in seconds.
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Costs, speed, ROI and risk compared, plus a simple framework for where your next marketing dollar should go.
Read article →More orders.
Less crawl waste.
Book a free call. We'll look at your store, your top categories and who outranks you, and tell you straight whether SEO, Shopping ads or both should get your next dollar.
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