Better Practices for Collection SEO

Alright, you’re here because you want the quick TL;DR on Shopify Collection SEO. You’re a busy person! If you’re working on collection SEO for your Shopify store, what should you focus on first?

Big picture, if you have the time, I recommend you read my complete Collection SEO guide. You’ll get a lot of context about collections on Shopify and SEO, and do this, not that advice.

But if you’re looking for a quick tl;dr summary, read on for an overview of the five most significant factors + best practices for Shopify Collection SEO.

Big picture, Google wants to see your collections be more relevant.

You do that by adding more content to your collections pages (i.e., in the SEO title, headline, collection descriptions, and elsewhere). The additional content will help your visitors and Google understand what a collection page is about.

First, decide which collections you’re optimizing

You don’t want to optimize all of your collection pages (really!!). You want to focus on optimizing just a small set of all possible pages. (I call these ‘SEO Priority’ collections.)

Which SEO priority collections should you focus on? You can read about that over here.

In short, start with focusing on collections already getting traffic/clicks or that you’re linking to from your homepage content.

Then, for an individual collection, pick a keyword and refine that keyword to a ‘long-tail’ keyword

Each collection page on your site competing for SEO should have a primary keyword on which the content focuses.

Rather than targeting generic, high-traffic terms (like ‘knives’), you’re better off targeting lower-traffic, more niche keywords (like ‘handmade carbon kitchen knives’). Why is that? Because those lower-traffic terms:

Are much less competitive
Full of searchers more interested in your products
Convert at a higher rate than the more generic keywords

Bottom line: picking a primary keyword for a collection of three, four, or even five+ words is a great way to decrease the potential search traffic but increase the relevance and the conversion rate.

You want to think through this and decide which keywords you’re targeting with which collection pages. (You can use this free collection SEO keyword map spreadsheet to map your collections + keywords.)

How should you identify those potential long-tail keywords? Read more on Collection SEO and Keyword Research here.

Next, optimize these four significant SEO factors

Collection SEO is primarily about making on-page content optimizations, so make sure these significant factors are tuned up and optimized:

The SEO Title — If possible, make it more relevant to the page’s topic, keyword, or intent of the search. Going more specific and exact is often recommended. (Read more here.)
The Collection Title (Headline) — The Collection Title (Headline) on the collection page is a strong signal to Google. You want this to be specific and relevant.
The Collection Description — The collection description is high-impact content on a collection page. (Read examples of collection descriptions here.)
Internal Linking — Google looks at links within your site pointing to a collection page as a signal of relevance and authority. I recommend building internal links from blogs, collections, and your homepage for your SEO priority collections.

There are minor + more advanced opportunities that are worth exploring down the line.

For now, the above factors are the most significant and impactful. I encourage you to start your work on collection SEO by focusing on the following:

Keyword Research and Refinement

And optimizing the:

SEO Title
Collection Title
Collection Description
Internal Linking

Now that you’ve read this best practice summary, check out these additional resources:

Go to the start of this Collection SEO guide and get a complete view of collection SEO and your opportunities.
Jump to the minor or advanced collection SEO opportunities
Read an analysis + ranking of the collection SEO opportunities.

And if you’re looking for help with your SEO or collection SEO, you can browse my Shopify SEO services or feel free to contact me and tell me about your Shopify store.

Now that you’ve finished reading this chapter on collection SEO, you can:

Read the previous chapter

The Collection Keyword Map

Read the next chapter

Collection SEO Digital Garden Index

Or you can jump to one of these reader-favorite chapters:

If you want help growing your Shopify store, I encourage you to check out my Shopify SEO + Growth services or get in touch and tell me about your store.