Unbound Merino does collection descriptions really well!

I came across Unbound Merino the other day, a Shopify store selling merino wool clothing for men and women. They’ve got an excellent approach to collection descriptions, and I want to call out what they’re doing well. (To be clear, I haven’t worked with them, and they aren’t a client. They’re just doing collection descriptions and SEO well, and I wanted to write about them.)

Check their store and collections out. The images that follow are from their Women’s Merino Socks and Men’s Merino Underwear collection pages.

These collection descriptions — and collection hero sections overall — are well done! Let’s talk about what they’re doing well — and why descriptions make an impact.

First, why are collection descriptions important for SEO?

Collection descriptions are an essential piece of on-page content that helps your customers and Google understand what a collection page is about. Just 25-75 words of on-page content in the description can make a huge difference in your rankings.

Collections are a very important type of page for SEO. Collection pages are great for ranking for transactional and categorical terms, like we see with Unbound: “Women’s Merino Wool Socks,” “Men’s Merino Underwear & Boxer Briefs.” These are great categorical terms for a collection to target.

Collection descriptions are a high-impact opportunity to get on-page content on these very important page types. I’ve written more about Collection SEO and collection descriptions for SEO on those pages. I’m a big fan of collections for SEO.

Second, what is Unbound doing well with their collection descriptions?

As soon as I saw Unbound’s collections, I knew I was going to write about them. They’re a great mini-case study in what well-designed, SEO-optimized collections with descriptions look like.

Length — Their descriptions are short and effective. ~25-50 words of content in the description body. That’s right on target. Any amount of content here is better than no content.

Relevance — These are very topically relevant descriptions. Unbound is using this space to talk about their products and what they’re made from. That’s letting them have the “merino wool [product type]” keyword in this content multiple times in a natural way.

Features — Their 4×1 ‘features’ block is a genius move. This is a way to add product benefits and additional keyword mentions to the header. The use of icon imagery + text is great. And that element overall helps balance the composition of the hero image.

Past that, they’re doing a great job with the breadcrumb and heading on the pages.

The headline is another high-impact piece of content after the SEO Title and Collection Description. They’ve gone with a targeted “Men’s Merino Underwear & Boxer Briefs.”
The breadcrumb is a great spot to get a relevant keyword in, and they’ve gone with “Men’s Underwear.” Very relevant.

I also want to call out Unbound’s aesthetic approach. Oftentimes when I speak with a merchant about adding collection descriptions to their store they’re concerned that the additional text won’t look nice in their theme. That can happen, especially if the store is running a theme out of the box without any design customizations. To implement collection descriptions well, you want to invest in updating the design of your collection pages so this content looks good to your customers.

It’s clear to me that Unbound has invested in a great design here. The hero on their collection page looks great. This space is well designed, features a relevant collection image, breadcrumb, relevant content in the headline and description, and a the 4×1 product features images + headlines. All of this content is great for SEO and well-optimized; and yet it feels natural to read and doesn’t hit the visitor over the head with over-the-top optimization.

This is a very well done approach to collection descriptions and collection pages in general. Let’s give a hand to Unbound. 👏.

Third, what could Unbound do better with their descriptions?

They’re missing out on one big opportunity when it comes to collection descriptions: internal linking! I’d love to see them include an internal link or two in each collection description. Here are three opportunities to consider:

Build internal links between collections. In the text of the collection description include a “You might also like…” recommendation + link to another collection in the store. As an example, the “Women’s Socks” collection might have an internal link over to the “Women’s Leggings” and “Women’s Tees & Tanks” collections. This helps surface collections, improve discoverability, and makes it easier for Google to see related collections.

Build internal links to blogs or pages. In the text of the description or in the text of feature icon + image, link to a relevant page that talks more about the feature. That way, if the customer has questions, they can click and learn more.

Build internal links to a recommended product. If there’s a specific product you’d like to promote — or an SEO priority product that would benefit from an internal link — use a text link in the collection description to link to it. A product recommendation in a collection description is a great internal link to build, and looks very natural to the reader. You’re saying, “Hey, make sure you look at this one. People love it. .”

Each of those is a win for SEO, discoverability, and the customer experience. I think it’s worth picking one of those three opportunities for each collection page and adding one or two internal links. Always aim to keep the experience good for your customers. (I’ve written more on internal linking for collection SEO here.)

And there you have it. Unbound is doing collection descriptions the right way.

Excelsior!

— Kai, your Shopify SEO guy