Your ecommerce SEO strategy isn’t broken, but something is wrong. Let’s pinpoint the five most common culprits for this and how to fix them.
1. Site Speed & Performance Are Dragging You Down
Slow loading times kill engagement and kill rankings. Even if your site “looks fine”, if pages take 3+ seconds to load (especially on mobile), your customers leave and search engines penalize you.
Fix: Audit load time (desktop + mobile). Compress/resize images, minify JS/CSS, enable caching/CDN, and choose faster hosting. Make page-speed a priority, not an afterthought.
2. Crawling & Indexing Issues: Pages That Never Show Up
You may think your content is live, but if your site architecture, sitemap, robots.txt or canonical tags aren’t properly configured, some pages may never get indexed. Duplicate or near-duplicate URLs? Faceted navigation creating endless filter versions? These silently eat your “crawl budget” and drown your visibility.
Fix: Review Search Console for “Excluded” pages. Ensure you’re not blocking worthwhile pages, and you are canonicalizing duplicates. Clean up your sitemap, eliminate or noindex low value URLs.
3. Content Gaps & Duplicate/Thin Content
You’ve got content, but does it serve your audience and search intent? Or is it generic, manufacturer-supplied, or just “there”? Duplicate or thin descriptions don’t give search engines or users a reason to choose you. The same applies when your site lacks content around the keywords users actually search for (especially long-tail, purchase-intent queries).
Fix: Audit your product and category pages. We have 10 great tips for product pages you can utilize for this. Write unique, benefit-driven copy. Add user reviews, detailed specs, use cases, media. Map out which keywords you’re missing entirely and build targeted content (blogs, guides, FAQs) to fill those gaps.
4. Poor Site Architecture / Internal Linking / Navigation
Even if you have decent content and good pages, if your site structure buries them deep, hides them behind multiple clicks, or doesn’t link them internally, you reduce both user experience and search engine value. It’s common to have high-value pages become “orphans” or are reached only via UX elements that search bots don’t follow.
Fix: Ensure your navigation and internal links flow logically. High priority pages should be no more than 2-3 clicks away from your homepage. Use breadcrumbs, category hierarchies that mirror real user intent, and make sure internal linking passes authority. Eliminate or fix pages with zero inbound internal links.
5. Missing Business Goals & Measurement for SEO
Ecommerce SEO strategy isn’t just about rankings, it’s about business outcomes. If your's isn’t aligned with measurable goals (traffic, conversions, revenue) you can lose direction. Worse: you may chase keywords, tweak meta tags, but never test whether your SEO work actually drives value.
Fix: Define clear KPIs (e.g., increase organic revenue by X% in 3 months, reduce bounce from organic traffic by Y%). Track baseline performance, set milestones, and review which pages/strategies contributed. Align content, technical fixes and link building with those goals. If something doesn’t move the needle, it doesn’t belong in the plan.
Action Plan for the Next 30 Days
- Run a mini-audit: Measure site speed (mobile & desktop), crawl/index metrics, and map out your top 50 high-traffic or high-potential pages. If your running WordPress, we have a great technical SEO audit you can reference for this.
- Pick one major blocker (from the five above) you will fix this month. Assign ownership, set deadline.
- Build a content gap map: List keywords you’re not ranking for but should be, note which pages would need new content.
- Optimize internal linking: Choose five priority pages and ensure they’re properly linked, structured, and accessible.
- Define outcome KPIs: What will success look like in 90 days? Document it, review weekly.
Final Word
You’ve tried SEO. It didn’t hit. That’s not a reflection that SEO is dead, it’s a signal that the strategy mis-fired. Whether it’s technical weeds tripping up your site, content that doesn’t serve anyone, or architecture that buries your assets, there’s a fix. The question is: will you make it the priority or keep hoping for "SEO Magic”?
Stop hoping. Start diagnosing. And fix one thing at a time. Your store and your business will thank you. If you don't have time to invest into crafting an ecommerce SEO strategy, let us know and we can handle it for you.
