Having an online store is the first big step into the world of e-commerce. However, launching it is only the beginning.
With millions of competing offers, the biggest challenge is reaching potential customers—right when they're searching for the products you offer. This can be achieved through paid advertising, but it's online store positioning (SEO) is the foundation for stable, long-term, and most profitable growth. It's an investment that, unlike PPC campaigns, builds lasting value and generates free, valuable traffic over time.
Step 0: The foundation, i.e. SEO audit and competition analysis
Before you start changing anything, you need to know exactly where you're starting and who you're up against. Going headfirst into SEO is the easiest way to burn through both your budget and your time.
Conduct a basic technical audit
You need to assess the technical health of your store. At this stage, you don't need advanced, paid tools. You can check many things yourself or with free solutions (e.g., Google Search Console). Pay attention to:
-
Indexing: Are your most important pages (home, categories, products) in the Google index? You can check this by searching for site:twojsklep.pl.
-
SSL Certificate: Does your store use the secure HTTPS protocol?
-
Mobile version: Is the store fully responsive and easy to use on smartphones? (Check with Google Mobile-Friendly Test).
-
Charging speed: How quickly do your homepage and category pages load? Use Google PageSpeed Insights to get a preliminary diagnosis.
This basic overview will allow you to identify the most pressing technical issues that may be blocking your visibility.
Analyze your competitors' visibility and strategy
Type a few key phrases into Google that you'd like to be seen for. Who's ranking top? Your direct competitors are a wealth of information. Analyze their stores:
-
What is the category structure?
-
How optimized are their product and category pages (titles, headings, descriptions)?
-
Do they have a blog or guide section?
-
What links lead to them? (Tools like Ahrefs or Majestic in their trial versions will be useful for this analysis.).
Understanding what leaders in your industry are doing will give you an invaluable reference point for your own strategy.
Step 1: Keyword Research and Strategy – Map Your Activities
This is an absolutely crucial step that will lay the foundation for everything you do next. You need to learn what words and phrases your potential customers use to find the products you sell.
Understanding user purchasing intent
Every search query you enter into Google has an intent. In e-commerce, it's crucial to distinguish between:
-
Informational intent: The user is looking for information and advice (e.g. "what bike up to PLN 3,000", "how to care for leather shoes").
-
Commercial (research) intent: The user compares products and looks for opinions (e.g. "kross level 2.0 bike reviews", "iphone 14 vs samsung s23").
-
Transactional intent: The user is ready to purchase (e.g. "kross level 2.0 bike shop", "men's brown leather shoes size 43").
Your task is to reach the user at each of these stages by assigning the right keywords to the right types of pages in your store.
Types of keywords in e-commerce
-
General (short-tail): Short, highly competitive phrases (e.g., "shoes," "bikes") generate high traffic but low conversion rates. They typically target the homepage or key categories.
-
Detailed (long-tail): Longer, more specific queries (e.g., "red floral dress for a wedding, size medium") generate less traffic but have a very high conversion rate. Ideal for SEO of product pages and blog posts.
-
Branded: Containing your brand name (e.g. "pixelis store reviews").
Strategy development tools and process
Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, Senuto, or Ubersuggest to create a comprehensive list of potential keywords. Then, group them thematically and assign them to specific URLs in your store. Transactional keywords should be assigned to product and category pages, and informational keywords should be assigned to future blog posts.
Step 2: Technical SEO – the invisible backbone of your store
Technical SEO is a set of activities that make your store understandable, accessible, and easy for Google to index. Neglecting this area can undermine all other efforts.
Loading speed and mobile-first
The modern customer is impatient and mobile. A site that takes longer than 3-4 seconds to load loses a significant amount of potential traffic. Google also promotes fast and fully responsive websites. Be sure to optimize images, utilize cache, and choose efficient hosting.
Proper information architecture and friendly URLs
The structure of your store should be logical and intuitive for both users and robots. The ideal structure resembles a pyramid: Home -> Categories -> Subcategories -> Products. Avoid nesting too deeply (no more than 3-4 levels). URLs should be simple, readable, and keyword-rich (e.g. twojsklep.pl/men's-shoes/leather-shoes/ instead twojsklep.pl/cat-12/sub-5/prod-?id=987).
Optimized for indexing
-
Sitemap (sitemap.xml): This file lists all the important URLs in your store. It helps Google's crawlers find all your pages.
-
Robots.txt file: This is a file with instructions for robots, informing them which parts of the website they should not scan (e.g. shopping cart, login panel, internal search results).
Structured Data (schema.org)
These are special tags in a page's code that help Google understand its content. In e-commerce, the following are key:
-
Product: Provides information about the price, availability and brand of the product.
-
Review / Aggregate Rating: Allows you to display star ratings directly in search results.
-
BreadcrumbList: Helps display breadcrumbs in search results.
Managing duplicate content
Online stores are particularly vulnerable to duplicate content, which can negatively impact rankings. Duplicate content can be caused by factors such as:
-
Filtering and sorting: When a user filters products, a new URL is often generated with the same content.
-
Pagination (pagination): Product lists divided into multiple pages.
-
Product variants: Products in different colors or sizes available at different URLs.
The solution is to use canonical links (rel=”canonical”), which tell Google which URL is the original, preferred version of a given page.
Step 3: On-page optimization – the heart of e-commerce positioning
It is at this stage that we optimize specific subpages in the store to best suit user queries.
Category page optimization
Category pages are among the most important subpages in a store. They compete for rankings for general, competitive phrases. Key elements for optimization:
-
Unique category description: Longer (minimum 2000-3000 characters), valuable text placed at the top or bottom of the product list. Describe what the customer will find in this category and advise on how to choose the product. Naturally infuse the text with keywords.
-
Title (
) i H1 heading: They must contain the main keyword phrase and be clickable. -
Friendly filters: They make navigation easier for users and can be used to create additional subpages for long-tail phrases.
Product card optimization
The goal of a product page is conversion, but also to gain long-tail traffic.
-
Unique product descriptions: Never copy manufacturer descriptions! Create your own, comprehensive descriptions that answer all customer questions. Use the language of benefits.
-
Optimized photos: Use high-quality photos with descriptive file names and ALT attributes.
-
Customer reviews: Encourage reviews. They're valuable, unique content and a powerful SEO signal (and social proof).
Internal linking
Strategically placed internal links help distribute SEO power throughout the site and facilitate navigation. Link from category descriptions to key products, from blog posts to related products and categories, and from product pages to similar or complementary articles (cross-selling).
Step 4: Content Marketing – Attract Customers Before They Want to Buy
SEO isn't just about optimizing existing websites. It's also about creating new content that meets users' information needs.
-
Company blog: It's the perfect place to publish guides ("How to choose..."), rankings ("Top 5..."), and inspiration ("Ideas for..."). This allows you to gain traffic early in the purchasing journey and build your image as an expert.
-
Extensive guides and knowledge bases: They can become a powerful magnet for links and search engine traffic.
-
Video content: Unboxings, reviews, and video tutorials placed on a product card or blog can significantly increase engagement and time spent on the website.
Step 5: Link building – gaining trust in the eyes of Google
Backlinks from other valuable websites to your store are one of the most important ranking factors. They act as votes of trust online.
-
What are valuable links? These are links from thematically related, authoritative websites (industry portals, expert blogs).
-
How to get them?
-
-
Publish guest articles on other sites.
-
Collaborate with bloggers and influencers.
-
Create such valuable content (e.g. reports, comprehensive guides) that others will want to link to them.
-
Participate in industry forums and discussion groups (in moderation and without spam).
-
-
Positioning as a continuous optimization process
Getting Started online store positioning It may seem overwhelming, but the key is methodical, step-by-step action. Start with a solid foundation – analysis, keyword strategy, and technical SEO organization. Then, systematically optimize your category and product pages. Simultaneously, develop valuable content marketing and build a backlink profile. Remember that SEO isn't a one-time project, but an ongoing, cyclical process: you implement changes, measure the results using analytical tools, draw conclusions, and continue optimizing. The first results may take a few months to appear, but patience and consistency will surely result in a steady increase in visibility, traffic, and, most importantly, sales in your store.