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Best SEO Structure For E-Commerce With Products Using Multiple Categories
Hi all, I am in the process of re-structuring my e-commerce website for better SEO and user experience. I have done some keyword research and would like some advice on how best to structure my site around those keywords.
For example, my site **(All Things Nature)** sells a brand of wooden sculptures **(Woodsculp)** and I would like to rank for keywords related to that brand, the **brand** **by animal,** the **brand** **by collection** and the **brand** **by release date**.
Examples of keywords could be:
**Brand by Animal:** Woodsculp Dogs, Woodsculp Cats, Woodsculp Elephants
**Brand by Collection:** Woodsculp Pets, Woodsculp Safari
**Brand by Release Date:** Woodsculp Christmas 2023, Woodsculp Summer 2022
I would create each of these keywords as a category so that they can be found by a search engine and by users. I would then structure as follows:
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Pets
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Summer 2022
The only problem with this structure is it would take more than 3 clicks (4) for the user to reach a product. How critical is this for good SEO and user experience?
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1. Would I be better off getting rid of the ‘Woodsculp by Animal’, ‘Woodsculp by Collection’ and ‘Woodsculp by Release Date’ categories? Structure would look as follows:
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023
The only thing with this is there would be a lot of categories under the brand name which might make it more difficult for search engines and users to logically follow.
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2. Would I be better off getting rid of the brand category and replace them with the keyword categories? Structure would look as follows:
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Animal -> Woodsculp Elephants
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Collection -> Woodsculp Safari
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp by Release Date -> Woodsculp Christmas 2023
This would organise things more logically but I would then lose the brand category (and the potential of the brand keyword ranking?)
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3. Would I be better off choosing one main keyword to use as a category and then use tags for the other categories?
Categories:
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Dogs
All Things Nature -> Woodsculp -> Woodsculp Elephants
Tags:
Woodsculp Safari
Woodsculp Christmas 2023
The next issue I have is that I have products which could fall under several different categories. A product called **Elijah Elephant,** for example could fall under **Woodsculp Elephants, Woodsculp Safari** and **Woodsculp Summer 2022.**
In previous e-commerce sites I have never assigned multiple categories to one product (I instead have used tags). This has allowed me to assign a specific category URL for a product. With Elijah Elephant for example I would have a dedicated URL of:
allthingsnature/woodsculp/woodsculp-safari/elijah-elephant
This would cause problems if I ever decided to change the name of the category as the link would break.
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4. Is it good practice to organise products under multiple categories for an e-commerce site?
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5. Would I be better off changing my products URLs to fall under the brand? e.g. allthingsnature/elijah-elephant
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Thanks in advance for any help and advice.
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1 Reply
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Try to apply the rule of three clicks: in a maximum of three clicks, the user should get his goal.
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What search term research have you done?
That surely is the key to the category structure!
What are people searching for to find the product and work backwards from that?
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