Collection SEO is one of the most significant opportunities to grow your Shopify store’s traffic

Shopify Collection SEO is about optimizing a Shopify collection page to be more relevant for a specific, niche keyword. That specificity will help your page rank higher in Google and attract more visitors. And you do that by writing + adding relevant content to a few key places on each collection page.

As an SEO consultant specializing in Shopify SEO, I’ve found that the collections on Shopify stores are frequently under-optimized.

Your collection pages are a great way to attract traffic from potential customers searching for purchase-ready ‘transactional-intent’ keywords that relate to your store, like ‘buy watercolor illustrated tea towels.’

If your collections aren’t optimized, your Shopify store leaves money (and traffic) on the table. You can easily attract traffic to your Shopify store by optimizing just a few things on your existing collection pages (and maybe by creating a few new collection pages.)

Big picture, the more relevant information you can share on your collection page, the better the browsing experience for your customer, and the better your SEO and rankings. (As a guiding light, your goal is to write for humans first and search engine robots second.)

I put together this digital garden to help you understand what goes into Shopify Collection SEO and help you tackle your collection SEO. Read on for detailed guidance (or skip to the collection SEO chapter index).

And if you’re on Twitter, please like or retweet this tweet announcing this guide. Your retweets, favorites, and replies help spread the word and make a difference.

What goes into doing collection SEO?

Collection SEO is primarily about on-page optimizations to your collection pages. That means you’ll optimize your collections by adding or optimizing content to the collection page itself. Where do you add or optimize this content? In just a few places, including the following:

  • SEO Title
  • Collection Title
  • Collection Description

Adding more high-quality, relevant content in these spots will help your collections rank higher on Google.

Remember, your goal is ‘better than average,’ not ‘perfect’

In my experience, your goal should be ‘better-than-average’ collection SEO. You don’t need to stress about having perfect collection SEO and doing every last SEO thing perfectly. You want to:

  • Identify just a few priority collections for your store
  • Optimize the SEO for those collections
  • Aim for a goal of ‘better than the average’ than your competitors, not perfect.

Collection SEO doesn’t have to take much time to do well (or better than average). It just takes investing a little time and attention and making sure you’ve tackled the significant and major opportunities.

Your top four collection SEO opportunities

These are the top four opportunities for your collection SEO. I recommend focusing your time, attention, and effort on these opportunities.

  1. Writing and optimizing your collection descriptions. This is one of the more impactful opportunities for your collection SEO. Adding collection descriptions will help them rank higher for keywords, rank for more keywords, improve your overall SEO, and attract more traffic.
  2. Adding a better (more specific) SEO title to your collection. This is often a great opportunity and one of the more impactful.
  3. Optimizing your collection title headline to be more specific. Similar to the impact of an SEO title, optimizing your collection title (headline) will help Google and your customers understand what a collection is about.
  4. Adding internal links pointing to specific collections. Adding links on other pages on your site that point to specific collections will help your collection SEO.

Tackling those four opportunities on your top priority collections will make a major impact.

Who is this person talking to you about collection SEO? 👋

Hey there, I’m Kai Davis, a growth marketer and SEO consultant for Shopify stores.

I’ve worked with Shopify stores on SEO and growth since ~2014. Since 2020, I’ve specialized in collection SEO on Shopify stores.

I put together this free resource on collection SEO because all I could find on the topic was outdated! This ‘digital garden’ is full of information, tips, examples, and practical advice based on my first-hand 15+ years of experience working in SEO, digital marketing, and copywriting.

I hope this helps you better understand collection SEO and the actions to take!

Questions?

You can always reach me at kai@doubleyourecommerce.com.

Or you can ask me your e-commerce SEO/marketing/growth questions here.

Excelsior!
Kai

An analysis + ranking of the top 10 collection SEO opportunities

I’ve collected and analyzed the top ten collection SEO opportunities for you. You can move these levers to optimize your collections to earn more traffic.

  • Four of them I consider significant opportunities. These are the more impactful optimizations that I recommend focusing on.
  • One of them I consider a significant opportunity that requires technical resources. You can tackle this if you have a developer (or are comfortable editing your theme files). If not? You can safely ignore it.
  • Five of them I consider minor opportunities. You can eventually tackle them if you have the time and inclination, but they aren’t essential and sometimes don’t even impact your SEO. I recommend taking your time considering those opportunities.

In the table below, I’ve scored and commented on the top ten major and minor collection SEO opportunities

For each opportunity, I’ve:

Assigned it a score from 1-3 based on Effort and Impact (see scoring below)
Multiplied the Effort and Impact scores together to get a total score (a higher total score is better)
Ranked the opportunities based on their total score
Included notes on that particular opportunity


Effort

Low – 3 points
Medium – 2 points
High – 1 point

Impact

Low – 1 point
Medium – 2 points
High – 3 points

Collection SEO Opportunity Table — Analysis and Rankings

SEO OpportunityTypeEffortImpactScoreComments
Writing a collection descriptionSignificantMediumHigh6Very high impact (and a personal favorite).
Optimizing the SEO TitleSignificantMediumHigh6One of the more impactful opportunities. Google looks at this as a major factor.
Building internal links
pointing to a collection
SignificantLowMedium6This is a great opportunity, especially when adding links to existing content or blogs.
Optimizing the ‘Collection Title’ for a collectionSignificantLowMedium6This is great for optimizing and can help Google understand your collections.
Optimizing the product gridSignificant (Advanced)MediumHigh6High impact and takes development resources. (Closer to 4.5 than 6).
Splitting collection descriptions below the product gridMinor (Advanced)MediumMedium4Requires custom coding and writing additional content. I recommend you pass.
Meta descriptions and collection SEOMinorLowLow3Meta Descriptions have no impact on SEO or rankings. Don’t bother with this.
URL handles and collection SEOMinorLowLow3URLs should be short, include a keyword, and rarely change. Don’t worry about this.
Featured images and collection SEOMinorLowLow3If your image is heavy, it will hurt your SEO.
Page loading speed and collection SEOMinorMediumLow2If you’re concerned, run a specific page through WebPageTest and see how it scores.

Collection SEO Chapter Index

To help you in your Shopify SEO efforts, I’ve put together this digital garden full of articles, tips, guides, and examples to help you optimize your Collection SEO.

Inside is information on more opportunities for Collection SEO, plus the opportunities from the table above. Inside each of these chapters on a part of Collection SEO, I’ve included more specific information to help with the opportunity.

Section 1 – Significant Factors

6

Factor Zero: Keyword Research

Section 1 – Chapter 1
Before optimizing a collection, it’s important to determine the keyword you’re optimizing it for. Inside, you’ll learn a strategy for keyword research.

7

The SEO Title

Section 1 – Chapter 2
The SEO title on a collection page is like the title of an article in a newspaper. It’s an essential element; without it, something has gone wrong.

8

The Collection Title

Section 1 – Chapter 3
The collection title (or page headline) is an important keyword-rich piece of on-page content. You want to make sure your collection title is optimized.

9

The Collection Description

Section 1 – Chapter 4
Collection descriptions are a very high-impact opportunity for your SEO (and a personal favorite). Descriptions get you keyword-rich on-page content.

10

Collection Description Examples

Section 1 – Chapter 5
Browse through these five example collection descriptions sourced from ‘in the wild’ Shopify stores. I share feedback on each description.

11

Internal Linking

Section 1 – Chapter 6
Adding internal links that point to your collections is a high-impact opportunity that’s low-effort to implement. This one is worth implementing.

Section 2 – Minor Factors

1

URL Handles

Section 2 – Chapter 1
URL handles have a tiny impact on your SEO and rankings. It’s best to have clear and short URLs that mention a keyword. Don’t keyword stuff.

14

Meta Descriptions

Section 2 – Chapter 2
Meta Descriptions have no impact on SEO or your rankings. They’re purely ornamental. Don’t bother writing meta descriptions for your collection pages.

Section 3 – Advanced Opportunities

3

Product Grid Opportunities

Section 3 – Chapter 1
Optimizing your product grid to output additional product details is a high-impact opportunity for your SEO. (This is advanced + technical.)

4

Splitting Collection Content ↕️

Section 3 – Chapter 2
It may make sense to split your collection descriptions above/below the product grid. In this chapter, I share contextual info + code samples.

Section 4 – Additional Resources

5

Picking collections to optimize

Section 4 – Chapter 1
If you already have collections, which should you optimize? (Not all of them!) In this chapter, you’ll learn how to identify your SEO MVP collections.

15

The Collection Keyword Map

Section 4 – Chapter 2
You can make a free copy of my keyword map and track the keywords your collections target in one central place.

16

Best Practices for Collection SEO

Section 4 – Chapter 3
A summary of the top, most significant opportunities and best practices for your Shopify Collection SEO.

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