Can an SEO company help with e-commerce optimization?
Yes. An online store raises problems that a brochure site never has: product variants, filters that can generate endless URLs, thin category pages, and products that come and go. An SEO company can take on that work, and Google publishes specific guidance for most of these problems, which gives you a way to judge whether the company’s approach is sound.
Product variants
A product sold in several sizes or colors creates several near-identical pages. Google’s guidance on URL structure for ecommerce sites asks stores to “make sure that each variant can be identified by a separate URL”, either as a path segment or a query parameter. Where the variant is set by an optional parameter, it advises: “use the URL with the query parameter omitted as the canonical URL.” The same page asks that one consistent URL be used in internal links, sitemap files, and canonical tags.
Structured data can make the relationship explicit. Google’s documentation on product variant structured data recommends the ProductGroup type, with properties such as variesBy, hasVariant, and productGroupID, “to help Google better understand which products are variations of the same parent product.” Ask the company how it will set up variant URLs and markup on your platform, and who maintains the markup as products change.
Filters and faceted navigation
Filters for size, color, brand, and price are useful to shoppers and can create a very large number of URLs. Google’s guide to managing faceted navigation describes two routes. “If you don’t need the faceted navigation URLs potentially indexed, prevent crawling of these URLs.” If you do want some of them in search, the URLs should follow Google’s best practices for faceted navigation.
The useful middle ground is deliberate. Some filter combinations match real searches, such as a particular color of a particular product type, and can be worth keeping as indexable pages with their own titles. The rest can be kept out of crawling. Deciding which is which takes keyword research for your catalog, not a blanket rule, so ask the company how it makes that decision.
If a proposal mentions setting “URL parameter rules” in Search Console, it is describing a tool that no longer exists. Google announced in March 2022: “We’re deprecating the URL Parameters tool in Search Console in 1 month.”
Category and product pages
Category pages can rank for broader searches than any single product, which makes them worth real attention: a clear heading and title, and text that helps a shopper choose, not just a grid of thumbnails. Product pages need descriptions of their own rather than the manufacturer’s text that appears on every other store selling the item.
Products that come and go
A catalog changes constantly. New products need optimized pages, and discontinued products leave behind URLs that may have links and visitors. Ask the company what it does when a product is retired, and how seasonal categories are prepared before demand arrives. A store needs a process for this, not a one-time cleanup.
Checking store experience before hiring
Ask how the company will handle variant URLs and canonical tags, which filter pages it would keep indexable and why, whether it implements and maintains product structured data, and whether it has worked with your platform, since each one handles URLs and variants differently. Ask who makes the changes, the company or your developers, and how progress is reported. Specific answers to these are the evidence to look for; a general claim of e-commerce experience is not.