E-commerce SEO

Overview

When to Use This Skill

• When building product pages that need to rank in Google Shopping and organic search
• When implementing JSON-LD structured data for rich snippets (price, availability, reviews)
• When handling canonical URLs for products with multiple variants or filter combinations
• When generating XML sitemaps for a large catalog (10K+ products)
• When diagnosing why products are not appearing in Google Shopping rich results

Core Instructions

Step 1: Check what your platform handles automatically

/sitemap.xml

/sitemap_index.xml

/xmlsitemap.xml

Step 2: Install an SEO foundation

Shopify

1. Install a SEO app for enhanced structured data and bulk editing:
   • Yoast SEO for Shopify ($19/mo) — most comprehensive
   • Schema Plus (free tier) — focused on JSON-LD structured data
   • SEO Manager ($20/mo) — bulk meta editing + structured data
2. Go to Shopify Admin → Online Store → Preferences and verify:
   • Your homepage title and meta description are set
   • Google Analytics is connected
3. Go to each product's page in admin and fill in the SEO section at the bottom:
   • Write unique meta titles following:

     [Brand] [Product Name] - [Key Attribute] | [Store Name]

   • Write unique meta descriptions (150–160 characters) that include price range, key benefit, and a call to action
4. Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console: go to search.google.com/search-console → Sitemaps → Add

   yourstore.com/sitemap.xml

WooCommerce

1. Install Yoast SEO (free) or Rank Math (free) from the WordPress plugin directory — these are required for proper WooCommerce SEO
2. After installing Yoast SEO:
   • Go to Yoast SEO → Search Appearance → WooCommerce and configure product page templates
   • Enable JSON-LD structured data under Yoast SEO → Search Appearance → Schema
   • Go to Yoast SEO → Tools → Bulk Editor to edit meta titles and descriptions for all products at once
3. For enhanced product schema (price, availability, reviews):
   • Install Rank Math which includes WooCommerce Product Schema with review aggregation built in
4. Submit sitemap to Google Search Console: Yoast auto-generates

   /sitemap_index.xml

BigCommerce

1. BigCommerce includes basic SEO features built-in. Go to BigCommerce Admin → Products → [Edit Product] → SEO tab
2. For enhanced structured data: install SEO Expert from the BigCommerce App Marketplace
3. Go to Store Setup → Search Engine Optimization to configure global defaults
4. Submit your sitemap at

   yourstore.com/xmlsitemap.xml

   to Google Search Console

Custom / Headless

function buildProductJsonLd(product: Product, reviews: ReviewSummary) {
  return {
    '@context': 'https://schema.org',
    '@type': 'Product',
    name: product.title,
    image: product.images.map(img => img.src),
    description: product.metaDescription || product.description.slice(0, 200),
    sku: product.variants[0]?.sku,
    brand: { '@type': 'Brand', name: product.vendor },
    offers: product.variants.length === 1
      ? {
          '@type': 'Offer',
          url: `https://yourstore.com/products/${product.slug}`,
          priceCurrency: 'USD',
          price: (product.variants[0].priceInCents / 100).toFixed(2),
          availability: product.variants[0].inventoryQuantity > 0
            ? 'https://schema.org/InStock'
            : 'https://schema.org/OutOfStock',
        }
      : {
          '@type': 'AggregateOffer',
          lowPrice: (Math.min(...product.variants.map(v => v.priceInCents)) / 100).toFixed(2),
          highPrice: (Math.max(...product.variants.map(v => v.priceInCents)) / 100).toFixed(2),
          priceCurrency: 'USD',
          offerCount: product.variants.length,
        },
    ...(reviews.count > 0 ? {
      aggregateRating: {
        '@type': 'AggregateRating',
        ratingValue: reviews.average.toFixed(1),
        reviewCount: reviews.count,
        bestRating: '5',
      },
    } : {}),
  };
}

// Always use the base product URL as canonical
// /products/blue-widget?variant=123 → canonical: /products/blue-widget
function getCanonicalUrl(path: string): string {
  // Strip variant query parameters
  return `https://yourstore.com${path.split('?')[0]}`;
}

// Serve /sitemap.xml as a sitemap index pointing to paginated product sitemaps
// Each child sitemap: max 50,000 URLs
// Regenerate every 6 hours or on product publish/unpublish events

Step 3: Optimize product titles and descriptions

• Product title format:

  [Brand] [Product Name] [Key Attribute] - [Store Name]

  • Example: "Nike Air Max 90 White - Running Store"
• Meta description format: Include price range, key benefit, and CTA in 150–160 characters
  • Example: "Shop Nike Air Max 90 from $120. Lightweight cushioning for daily runs. Free shipping on orders over $75. Shop now."

• Duplicate meta titles across variants (fix: add variant-specific attributes to the title)
• Meta descriptions that are just the product description truncated (fix: write purposeful descriptions)
• Missing alt text on product images (fix: use

  [Product Name] - [Color/View]

  format)

Step 4: Handle technical SEO issues

• Collection pages with active filters (

  /collections/shoes?color=red

  ) should use self-referencing canonicals
• Pages with sort order only (

  /collections/shoes?sort=price-asc

  ) should canonical back to the unfiltered collection URL

• /cart

  and

  /checkout

  — not indexable

• /account

  and

  /search?

  — not indexable
• Collection filter combinations with 3+ active filters — use

  noindex, follow

  meta tag

Step 5: Verify with Google tools

1. Google Rich Results Test (search.google.com/test/rich-results): paste any product URL and verify structured data is correct
2. Google Search Console: check for structured data errors under Enhancements → Products
3. PageSpeed Insights: test Core Web Vitals — target LCP under 2.5 seconds, CLS under 0.1

Best Practices

• Write unique meta descriptions for every product — avoid duplicating the product title; include key attributes (size, material, price) that help click-through rate
• Compress and properly size product images — oversized images are the #1 cause of slow LCP scores; Shopify compresses automatically; WooCommerce use ShortPixel or Imagify plugin
• Use JSON-LD over microdata — easier to maintain and Google recommends it
• Set canonical URLs on every page — self-referencing canonicals prevent duplicate content from URL parameters
• Update sitemaps automatically — Shopify and WooCommerce + Yoast do this; for custom builds, regenerate on product publish/unpublish events
• Add image sitemaps — include product images with descriptive alt text for Google Image search traffic

Common Pitfalls

noindex, follow

Related Skills

• @google-shopping-feed
• @google-ads-ecommerce
• @content-commerce
• @social-proof-widgets