Joe says: “My additional insight for SEOin2025 is for e-commerce websites to prioritise collections and category pages over pretty much everything else.”

What's the difference between a collection page and a category page?

“A collection and a category, in my eyes, is pretty much the same thing.

Really, what I'm trying to differentiate is the difference between a collection or category and a product page or a longer-form content piece. It's the pages where you're talking about a selection of products, rather than, like I said, longer form content or a product.”

Why does this leave revenue on the table for e-commerce sites?

“I think there is a massive missed opportunity here.

I work with a lot of e-commerce brands – a lot of fashion brands in particular – and what they have is an overreliance on their own brand name or the names of their products if their products go viral or if they perform particularly well. What they're missing out on is people searching for a type of product, but not necessarily searching for them.

For example, it could be that someone is looking for a wedding dress, but not from a particular brand. Now, that is a massive opportunity because the way that people search isn't always brand-led. In fact, usually, it's the other way around.

Why I think that's leaving revenue on the table is because people are so reliant on their brand name that they're not paying attention to the people who aren't searching for the brand but, also, they're just not targeting those keywords. They're not really identifying what people are looking for that might be in line with their products.

It could be that they have a selection of dresses but, actually, those different dresses can be worn for all different events and all different occasions, and they have all different styles. That's what people are searching for, but they're just not connecting the two.”

‘Wedding dress’ is obviously a massive opportunity for sites that sell wedding dresses, but I would think it's a highly competitive keyword phrase.

How do you know if you have a legitimate opportunity to target a keyword phrase like that?

“Of course, wedding dresses are extremely competitive. I think the first stage is, obviously, you've got keyword research: looking at what people are searching for. But it's also trying to understand, using ‘wedding’ as an example, what around ‘weddings’ are people searching for that might have less search volume.

We recently won the Best Use of Search in Fashion award, and a lot of that was to do with ‘weddings’. It's not just that people are looking for wedding dresses. They're looking for ‘wedding guest dresses’. They're looking for ‘mother of the bride/groom dresses’. They're looking for ‘honeymoon dresses’ and ‘engagement dresses’. There are all these different terms around it.

It's trying to expand upon that and work out, well, even though they can be useful with this one particular thing, that cluster of keywords all falls within the same remit. So, how can we target all those different searches?

It could be through different pages. It could be that you have one main page and target those various terms. But, really, it stems from keyword research and, ultimately, everything should be data-led in what you're doing. It's just that sometimes you need to think outside of just that top-level keyword.”

What comes first then? Is it the long tail keyword phrase, that's less competitive and related to the core target phrase that you intend to target in the future, that you target first?

“It really does depend on the brand and what they're targeting.

Typically, I might start with the most top-level keywords. It could be ‘wedding dress’, just because it's an easy place to start, and go from there. I think some of it does come down to your understanding of the business, the products, and the brand. That plays into it – as well as actually talking to the brand and working out who is buying these products and what sort of events are they going to be wearing them for, in the case of fashion.

It really does depend. I think you can't go wrong starting really top level and then digging deeper than that, rather than going longer tail first, because then you might miss out other areas.”

By digging deeper, I'm imagining that you're talking about targeting these longer tail keyword phrases on subcategories on other category-type pages.

“That's exactly it. I think that plays into your first point about how things can be super competitive. You could have a dress brand that wants to sell wedding dresses but, again, it's super competitive. So, what about subcategory pages that can play a part in that?

It's also the understanding that, especially around events and weddings, someone looking for a wedding dress might also be looking for their friends for a wedding guest dress or for bridesmaid dresses.

If they're to come through the site through a bridesmaid guest search term, the chances are they're going to be interested in the other products, and navigating through the site that way as well.

I think the subcategory build is a massive missed opportunity, and it’s something we've been working really closely with our clients on.”

What metrics do you use to benchmark the opportunity against competitors, to actually determine if you have a likelihood of ranking for that keyword phrase?

“I suppose it's difficult because it depends on what brand you're working with/what client you're working with.

We've been very fortunate to work with some amazing brands that have really authoritative sites that have been built over the years, but need some direction. I think it then comes down to trying to understand the domain authority and where you sit within your existing remit. Looking at your existing keyword rankings and looking at who's ranking roughly around you.

You can dig deeper into competitor analysis. There are some brands you're always going to struggle to rank above, but then there are these smaller opportunities where you can rank above them because they're not taking advantage of it.

Again, it comes down to the keyword research level to begin with. Obviously, looking at domain authority as a metric, but doing some competitor analysis in regards to what they're targeting that you're trying to target – even looking at keyword density.

It can be quite manual but, looking at keyword density, the pages they've got, and the positions they're ranking for starts to give you an idea of where we can take advantage, where is going to be too much of a push, but also what the gaps are that our competitors aren't taking advantage of.”

Keyword density isn't a phrase that I've heard much recently. It used to be talked about ten-plus years ago, really, in SEO. People tend to talk about ‘write naturally’ more now, and Google understanding the context behind things.

Why are you using that phrase now? Is it still relevant in terms of optimizing our page?

“I would say it is relevant. When I'm talking about keyword density, I wouldn't necessarily say it's that a particular keyword needs to be listed X amount of times. It's more of a mix between keyword density and keyword variety.

Do we have the various keywords that we want to target within the page? Of course, it needs to be written naturally, and I'm not saying go in and just start spamming keywords in there because that is definitely not the route we want to go down. But, if we know that there is room to play around with the content and expand upon it, whilst also targeting terms, that's what we should be doing.

I think it's about using those keywords as a bit of a guide in terms of, what do we want to write about? What are people searching for, and how do we target that?

There is no set number of keywords that we're ever looking to target. But, especially from a competitive analysis perspective, it's always interesting to see, if we're trying to target this keyword group and one competitor’s only mentioned it once on the H1 but they have no on-page copy, and then another competitor's mentioned various keywords three times within the copy, then at least we have a gauge of what people are doing.

I've seen it before as well, especially for longer-form content, that you can start to get an idea of, if they're producing content with X amount of keywords that are related, do we try to align with that slightly? Then we know that we can be there or thereabout if we're trying to compete.”

What about the type and volume of content on these category pages? Because categories obviously have lots of different products on them and, if you have too much content above, you're going to be pushing products down below the fold. Obviously, if you have it down below, then search engines might not treat it as significantly as they would content further up.

So, what's the ideal position of the content and how much content are you looking for?

“I wish I could give you an exact number of words and everything, but I just don't think there is. I think, actually, a lot of what we're seeing is dependent on the brand itself, especially with fashion brands. It's the aesthetic behind the brand and the website, and how that plays out.

Typically, I don't think it needs to be excessive. I've seen some category pages before with so much content that, if you put it at the top, it drowns out all the products. That's definitely not what we want to do. But then, at the bottom, it can look super spammy as well because it's just a long-form piece of text.

There's no right or wrong answer. If you're looking at two/three paragraphs, if it's beneficial content, I think that's good. I would focus more on, if what you're writing is beneficial to the user and gives you options or an opportunity, and you internally link that across other pages, then that’s amazing – but don't write for a specific length.

Write based on what that product category is. Is this beneficial? Can you interlink between other categories that could help guide a user? That's where you can't really go wrong.”

How do you drive authority to these categories? Is it just about internal links or do you try to build external links to the category pages as well?

“You definitely can build external links. It's something that we don't touch on massively. We do a lot of internal linking structure here. It's not that I don't believe in building backlinks – I think there's a lot of opportunity there. I think there's a lot of authority that could be built. It's just that I think there are still a lot of outdated and spammy backlink practices which we just try to avoid and are something that I am not personally a huge fan of.

I think, if you went down more of a digital PR route, that would be fantastic. That's definitely something you can do. The other thing you can do is look at broken backlinks, especially for e-commerce sites. Chances are there are loads of old products that just aren't redirecting properly. That's definitely an opportunity as well.

Something you can control now is the internal linking structure, which is something that we do a lot with our clients.”

Should e-commerce sites have blogs, in general, or are blogs not as valuable as they used to be? I'm thinking of it as a different place to be publishing content and perhaps an opportunity to target non-immediate purchase-orientated keyword phrases.

“I think there is a lot of value in blog content. I think that the way that some people view blog content is more about what clicks or what visibility we're getting rather than, is it actually relevant to our target audience?

I think there is a massive opportunity. I think it can be good, but I would not prioritise it while overlooking something like collection and category pages. I would prioritise that so we know that people are searching for these products to buy, put our efforts into that, but then build up more content to help supplement that.

It could be informative pieces. It could be from the brand itself. I think you should also sprinkle in stuff that's not SEO related within your blog content, that's more just branded pieces/brand-led, to build that brand affinity. I think it's just about trying to find that right balance between, is it actually relevant to the user or are you just doing it to try to get clicks and visibility when it's not going to result in any sort of revenue generation?”

If you've taken on a new client that has maybe 1,000 categories and subcategories, how do you determine which category to focus on, to begin with?

“Good question. Typically, the way that we would do it is by reviewing their current performance in Google Analytics and Google Search Console. This gives us a really good idea of where they're already performing well.

Typically, the clients we work with, even if they're performing well for something, there are things that can be changed to improve it. A lot of what we want to focus on is adding and optimizing for what's already there, rather than taking things away – unless you feel like it's unnecessary.

It would really be looking at what's already performing well that we can maybe dial up a bit and just put a bit more focus on. That way, we can then start to prioritise things because, if we know that something's already doing well and already driving X amount of revenue, if we can just improve that slightly, then we know that's going to move the needle, and then it buys us some time in terms of doing the rest of the collection pages.

You can flip it the other way around and think, well, what's something that's not doing well? How can we improve that? That's great but I think, typically, with any SEO campaign, you want to hit the ground running and look at what we can do to move the needle ASAP, and then we can work on other stuff down the line.”

Do you look at seasonality and what's likely to be coming up, in terms of fashion trends if you're working for a luxury fashion e-commerce site, for example?

Would you look, perhaps, several months in advance and change the internal linking structure of the site to attempt to promote, and get Google to crawl and index higher, the pages that are likely to be more popular in the future?

“Definitely. You can put together keyword research where the search volume is based on a month-on-month basis. Of course, it's historical data, and you can't always predict trends for the following year, but at least it gives you an indication of when things are going to start to peak.

For example, when we've worked with big retailers before, it might be a case of: we know ‘sunglasses’ are going to start to peak in May. Therefore, we really want everything ready by February. We can look at internal links in March time, perhaps. You can have everything planned out to a rough level, based on that seasonality, when you look at how things peak and trough.

I'm trying to think of an example. We obviously just had winter. We're going into summer. For one of our brands, again, there's a big focus on wedding guests. We know that, as soon as the new year hits, that's when people are thinking, ‘Right, the wedding's this year. Let's focus on that.’ So, we get everything ready a few months prior just so, as soon as that search interest is there, we're in a position to take advantage of that.

We've got a brand that specialises in running. We know that, as soon as December is over and everyone has stopped eating chocolate, a lot of people are going to look to start running again. We get everything ready so that, when that ‘running’ spike starts to increase (especially as we get into the London marathon in April and stuff), we're in a strong position to take advantage of that.

You've hit the nail on the head, in regards to internal linking structure. You can play around with that as the year goes on, just to prioritise specific pages.”

It's interesting your example with sunglasses: you knew that the number of searches for sunglasses was going to go up significantly in May, and you used the example of having everything ready by March.

Is two months a good rule of thumb to start to change your internal linking structure, to try and get Google to look at that, consider it, and change the SERPs within that period of time?

“I think anyone who works in SEO will know that there's no set time in regards to this. I think that two to three months gives you a nice bumper.

I've seen examples where you can put things live a week in advance, and they still see really positive results. It's more about future-proofing yourself and trying to be in the best position that you can be.

I think giving it a couple of months is a nice bumper. It could be a month. It could be a week. But, if you can buy yourself a little bit more time, then I definitely would.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2025?

“If an SEO is struggling with time, I would honestly suggest that you stop focussing on blog content so that you can focus on category and collection pages for now.

Again, not that I don't believe there's value in blog content – I do – but I think that a lot of people see it as an easy win where we can gain traffic when, actually, the traffic that's going to generate revenue is from people searching different product categories.

For me, it would be a case of deprioritising blog content, looking at what people are searching for in regards to your product range that they then might convert on, really focussing on building that out as collection pages, and then using the blog content afterwards to help supplement that. You can always internal link between the two as well.”

Joe Hale is Founder at Verde Digital, and you can find him over at VerdeDigital.co.