SEO for Category Pages: 12 Proven Ways to Optimize

Almost every online store owner understands the benefits of SEO. Higher rankings mean more traffic and more sales. 

But are you optimizing every area of your store?  

While many e-commerce owners focus on optimizing product pages and content marketing initiatives like a blog, they neglect category pages.

That’s a shame because these pages are much more than a navigational tool shoppers use to find products. They are powerful pillar pages that can rank in their own right. 

By improving the SEO of your e-commerce category pages, you can increase traffic to dozens or even hundreds of different products at once. 

Below, I share the 12 methods I use to help category pages rank in Google—strategies you can start implementing immediately.

Key Takeaways

• There are two types of e-commerce category pages: category listings pages (which contain lists of product categories) and product listing pages (which contain lists of products)
• Category pages let you target high-volume, high-intent keywords that can generate a lot of traffic and revenue for your store. 
• Build hierarchical categories to make it easier for Google to crawl and index your site. It will also make it easier for shoppers to navigate your store, too. 
• A consistent category page layout improves the user experience and helps customers to find exactly what they are looking for. 
• Content is important on category pages, but use it sparingly. Make sure any copy you add helps shoppers to make a purchase decision.
• Add elements like product reviews and an FAQ section to improve conversion rates. 
• Use eye-catching images to grab the attention of shoppers and increase click-through rates. Make sure you add alt text to images while you’re at it. 
• Internal linking is vital to increase the flow of PageRank and help shoppers find relevant categories. 

Table of Contents

• Key Takeaways
• What Are Category Pages?
• Why Do They Matter for SEO?
• How To Optimize Your Category Pages for SEO
  • 1. Use Categories That Make Sense
  • 2. Build a Hierarchy With Category URLs
  • 3. Optimize Your Title Tags and Meta Data
  • 4. Create a Consistent Layout
  • 5. Be Concise And Clever With Your Copy
  • 6. Answer User Questions
  • 7. Add Product Reviews
  • 8. Think About the UX
  • 9. Use Eye-Catching Quality Images
  • 10. Internally Link Categories
  • 11. Use Structured Data
  • 12. Consider Conversion Rate Optimization
• FAQs
• Conclusion

What Are Category Pages?

Category pages are hub pages that help users navigate your store to find related products and subcategories. 

There are two main types of category pages. 

The first is a category listings page (CLP). This type of category page will mainly list other subcategories. Here’s an example from REI:

The second type is a product listings page (PLP). This type of category pages lists individual products. Here’s an example from The North Face:

Category pages tend to have a very simple design and layout. This usually includes an H1 (that hopefully targets a relevant keyword, some copy, (the amount varies significantly between sites), and a list of products or categories. 

Why Do They Matter for SEO?

Category pages help you target broad, high-volume search terms. These are keywords like “t-shirts” if you’re a clothing store or “dog toys” if you’re a pet brand. These terms have high transactional intent and a lot of searches, so you can generate a lot of revenue by getting category pages by optimizing category pages for SEO. 

As you can see, almost all of the top-ranking pages for “men’s hiking boots” are category pages. 

Category pages also help users and search engines navigate your site. For users, category pages organize your products, making it easier to find what they’re looking for. For search engines, category pages help web crawlers move around your site and index your content.

They also help search engines understand the relationship between different pieces of content and how they fit together, and they boost the ranking of individual product pages through internal links.

How To Optimize Your Category Pages for SEO

Now you know what category pages are and why they are important, let’s learn how to do SEO for category pages. Below I’ve got 12 tips that every e-commerce store owner or marketer can use to optimize their category pages. 

1. Use Categories That Make Sense

A key part of my e-commerce category page SEO strategy isn’t actually about SEO at all. It’s about how you structure the categories themselves.  

The first thing you need to do is organize your products into logical categories that make sense to your users. Otherwise, shoppers will leave your store in droves. In fact, poor navigation or layout is the joint top reason users leave e-commerce sites.

Start by grouping products into very broad categories (men’s clothes, women’s clothes, children’s clothes, etc.). Then break each category down further (jeans, t-shirts, sweaters, activewear, etc.). Finally, you can create very specific long-tail category pages like women’s yoga leggings. 

Lululemon’s navigation bar is a great example of how to break down products into categories and subcategories. If in doubt, look to your competitors for guidance, since stores in the same niche tend to use similar categories. 

2. Build a Hierarchy With Category URLs

Getting your e-commerce pages indexed by Google can be challenging, but you can prevent or resolve some of these issues with a well-organized URL structure.

An e-commerce hierarchy is critical for a couple of reasons:

1. It helps search engines understand the structure of your website.
2. It improves your website’s usability and UX, increasing customer satisfaction. By creating a hierarchy, you can enhance SEO for your category pages and make it easy for users to find the products.

Additionally, a poor URL structure can make Google more likely to miss content, or it may retrieve the same page several times and impede crawling.

For a clothing store a good, hierarchical URL structure might look something like:

• clothingstore.com/womens
• clothingstore.com/womens/dresses
• clothingstore.com/womens/dresses/eveningdresses

Whatever structure you use, make sure you keep URLs clean by avoiding numbers, dates, and special characters. You should also avoid going too deep and having more than three or four layers of subcategories. Otherwise, Google may struggle to crawl all of your site. 

3. Optimize Your Title Tags and Meta Data

Meta data refers to your title tags and meta descriptions, which are integral to SEO for category pages.

Title tags are a vital on-page SEO factor. They tell search engines what your page is about and determine your page’s title in the SERPs, which is what users see when deciding which website to visit.

A well-written title tag should be:

• Relevant to the page content
• Short and sweet (under 60 characters)
• Descriptive and keyword-rich

You’ll also want to optimize content with the right keywords and phrases.

Meta descriptions give search engines a summary of your page and help convince searchers to click through to your site.

To create meta descriptions:

• Keep it brief (155 characters or less)
• Use relevant keyword-enhanced descriptions, but don’t keyword stuff
• Update your meta descriptions regularly

Ultimately, you’re aiming for something like this:

Yes, there’s a chance Google will rewrite your title tags and meta descriptions, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still optimize them as part of your strategy. 

4. Create a Consistent Layout

When potential customers visit your website, you want to ensure they have a positive experience that leads them to become paying customers. However, research shows consumers aren’t always satisfied with their online experience. 

What can you do to improve customer satisfaction? One way to do this is to create a consistent layout across all your category pages.

When every category page is structured the same, it’s easy for shoppers to quickly navigate your site. They know what to expect, where to look for items, and how to filter product options. 

Here’s how to do it:

• Select a basic color scheme.
• Use the same header and footer on all site pages to create recognizable branding for your store and improve navigation.
• Try to stick to the same fonts throughout your site.
• Organize your products the same way on all site pages.
• Place calls-to-action (CTAs) in the same place on every page.
• If in doubt, err on the side of functionality over design. 

A consistent layout will save you a lot of work, too, since it will make creating new category pages very easy — especially if you save your design as a template in WordPress. 

5. Be Concise And Clever With Your Copy

A common e-commerce category page SEO mistake is going overboard with the amount of copy on your pages. You don’t want to distract shoppers, so limit yourself to a few hundred words at most. 

Stick to an enticing headline, a short introduction, a call to action, and then salient information that helps shoppers make a purchase. 

Don’t talk about the history of your product or the market in general, provide actionable advice that moves them further down the purchase funnel. This can include information like:

• Product USPs (unique selling points)
• How you choose products 
• How you source materials. 

Make your content as scannable as possible, too.

Here’s a great example from sustainable clothing brand Amour Vert. 

6. Answer User Questions

Do you want another way to add more keyword-rich copy to improve SEO for category pages? Then start answering customer questions in an FAQ section. 

This is a great way to build trust and increase conversion rates, especially if you’re able to answer genuine questions shoppers ask your customer support team rather than the questions you think customers want answered. It also gives you an opportunity to rank in the People Also Asked (PAA) section of Google. 

Here’s an example of what this can look like from Magic Spoon:

A majority (89 percent) of consumers look at question-and-answer sections before making a purchase. But that doesn’t mean this section has to take up room at the top of your category page. You can intersperse product listings with this section if you like or include it towards the bottom of your category page. 

7. Add Product Reviews

There’s no reason to restrict reviews to product pages. You can prime shoppers with social proof by including customer testimonials on your category pages and improve conversion rates as a result. Research by Power Reviews finds that ratings and reviews are the most important factor impacting purchase decisions, above price, shipping, and even recommendations from family and friends. 

They don’t have to ruin the flow of your category page, either. Look at how Manta Sleep seamlessly adds a scrolling feed of customer reviews on its category pages.

8. Think About the UX

User experience (UX) is crucial, no matter what page of your website a visitor is on. However, it’s vital on category pages, which are often core landing pages.

Here are a few tips for ensuring a great UX on your category pages:

1. Make sure the page loads quickly. Category pages are often image-heavy, so optimize your images and use a content delivery network (CDN) if necessary.

2. Use clear, descriptive headlines and subheadings. Doing this helps visitors quickly understand what to expect on the page and whether it’s relevant to their needs.

3. Ensure the page is well-organized and easy to navigate. Use clear sectioning, helpful filters, and sorting options so visitors can find what they’re looking for.

4. Include relevant product details – for example, colors, sizes, volume, etc.

5. Add faceted navigation to make large category pages more browseable.

Here’s an example of a large faceted navigation from online clothing retailer ASOS. Given the site has over 11,000 women’s tops for sale, these filters are essential to help customers narrow down their search.

9. Use Eye-Catching Quality Images

Research by Etsy finds 90 percent of shoppers say photo quality is extremely important or very important when making a purchase decision. So improve your e-commerce category page SEO by including as many high-quality images as possible. 

How can you create eye-catching images? Follow these tips:

• Show the product in context or in use.
• Shoot multiple angles
• Make sure the feature and thumbnail images are engaging

The photos on Pura Vida’s category pages are a great example. Hover over each image and you get an enticing in-context shot so you know exactly what the bracelet will look like on your arm.

Don’t forget to add alt text to your images, either. Search engines can’t see images, remember, so alt text helps them understand what shoppers can see. Plus it’s another opportunity to get your product photos to rank in the images section of Google. 

10. Internally Link Categories

Category pages and internal linking go hand in hand. These pages contain dozens of internal links by default. After all, every product you link to is an internal link.

But don’t discount the power of linking to other category pages, too. You can create a “Popular categories” or “Editor’s picks” section within your page layout to provide a space to manually link to other relevant categories. 

Breadcrumbs offer another way to link category pages with the rest of your website. These also make it easy for search engines to index your content and for users to navigate your site. 

Make sure you are adding links to category pages from your home page and within blog posts. Here’s a great example from Huel, which links to a category page using the first word of a blog post:

Shoppers can use these links to find categories they might be interested in. Links also distribute page rank across your website, meaning pages with lots of referring domains (like your home page or blog posts) pass on their authority to the rest of your site. 

11. Use Structured Data

Structured data is a standardized format that classifies some or all of a page’s content. You’re probably familiar with certain types of structured data like rich snippets and local business structured data — and there are several types of structured data you can use to improve your e-commerce category page SEO, too.

These include:

• FAQs: data about frequently asked questions
• Breadcrumbs: a set of hierarchical site structure links
• ItemList: a list of items like your products
• Store: a list of store information like shipping details and opening times
• Review: reviews of an item

Adding structured data can improve how your website appears in the search results.

Adidas and Thursday Boot Company are both benefiting from the addition of review and store structured data to their category pages. 

12. Consider Conversion Rate Optimization

Conversion rate optimization is the art and science of turning website visitors into customers. It’s the process of changing and testing the impact of different on-page elements on your conversion rates. 

When it comes to improving category page conversion rates, you should test the following elements: 

• Headings
• Body copy
• Images
• Calls to action
• Colors
• Product review placement

Don’t stop when you see an improvement. It doesn’t matter how many conversion features you add to your page, you can always eke out more conversions. That’s why continuous conversion rate optimization testing is so important. 

FAQs

How many words are on a category page for SEO?

How long is a piece of string? There’s no right or wrong answer to how many words you should include on your category page for SEO. The important thing is to have a keyword-optimized H1 tag and at least 100 words of useful copy that helps shoppers make a purchase. You can certainly add more content, though, especially if you are answering frequently asked questions or including product reviews.

Is it better to optimize category pages or product pages for SEO?

You should optimize both category pages and product pages for SEO. Both types of pages are very important to your SEO efforts and serve different purposes. Product pages help you target long tail keywords whereas category pages let you target higher volume short-tail keywords. Depending on your site and the products you sell, it may be easier to rank for one or the other. But the only way to find out which is best is to optimize both!

Are category pages good for SEO?

Category pages are a great way to improve your website’s SEO, but they require effort. Follow these tips in this article to optimize the SEO on your category pages:

• Build a hierarchy with category URLs
• Optimize metadata
• Create a consistent layout
• Use copy wisely
• Answer consumers’ questions
• Provide high-quality visuals
• Offer a stellar customer UX
• Use conversion optimization

Can category pages rank?

Yes, but not all pages are equal. If you want your category pages to rank, then make sure you internally link to them across your site, include keywords in heading tags and body copy, use high-quality images, and optimize your site’s technical performance.

Should you index category pages?

By indexing your category pages, you’re making it easier for Google to understand the structure and content of your site, which can positively impact your rankings.It can also help improve your click-through rate from SERPs. If users see that your category pages are relevant to their search query, they’re more likely to click through to your site.

Do categories and tags help SEO?

Indirectly, yes, they do.

According to Yoast, categories and tags are essential for SEO because of the structure they give.

However, when asked about possible ranking benefits of tags, Google’s John Mueller said:

“…it’s not necessarily that we would try to recognize tags on a page. But these are links, and potentially they go to… category page, your tag page, and that could be another page that we could index or that we could use to pick up links to your articles.”

How many categories should your blog have?

The ideal category count for your blog is a bit of a balancing act. You want to have enough that makes it easy for the reader to be able to navigate to different subjects they want. If you have too many, though, it actually makes things more difficult for them to do that. For most standard blogs, between 5-10 is a safe range, but for news blogs, for example, that number may be higher.

Conclusion

Don’t let category pages become the forgotten child of your e-commerce SEO efforts. While these may not get the attention of your product and landing pages, they play a crucial role in letting your users get to their final purchases.  By increasing internal links, improving hierarchy, and adding conversion optimization elements like FAQs and product reviews you can boost your website’s rankings, improve the user experience, and increase conversion rates.